Your Destiny is Annulled
by Cheb
Summary: An adventure, terrifying and wonderful and brutal. All the rules get thrown out of the window. The characters have to deal with new, unfamiliar, impossible challenges. Note that a mode lock makes for an epic quest worthy of epic heroes like Ranma.
1. The Last Straw

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

This story could also be found at ｒａｎｍａ-ｆａｎｆｉｃｓ。ｍｉｋａｔａ。ｒｕ／ｆａｎｆｉｃｓ／ｙｏｕｒ＿ｄｅｓｔｉｎｙ＿ｉｓ＿ａｎｎｕｌｌｅｄ／ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ

It has convenient pop-up comments, but most importantly it has such thing as Orphus (both need JavaScript to be enabled in your browser).

Orphus allows you to mark my typos or even comment my errors without interrupting your reading. Just select the offending piece of text with your mouse and press Ctrl + Enter. I will eventually receive your comment via e-mail. Believe me, this system helps _greatly_·in weeding out ytpos and general blunders.

(シーンブレイク)

This fanfic was inspired by "Sailor Ranko" by Duncan Zillman. It evolved for a long time as an another sequel in the extended "Sailor Ranko" universe created by many authors: Kevin Hammel, Rebecca Heineman, Arthur Hansen and VentureH.

In March 2012 I decided to cut the ties with the SR metaseries, first and foremost because of it glaring discrepancies with the Ranma manga canon. I tolerated these for a long time trying to comply, but I can't hold any longer. From now on this fic is an Alternate Universe of Sailor Ranko. I have no bad feelings towards these stories and don't rerget investing a lot of effort in my complete Russian translation for Rebecca Heineman's Tunnel Vision. But the raving purism that gradually overcame me leaves me no choice.

**Arc One  
No-holds-barred clash**

Briefly abiut the universe:  
1. The events of "Sailor Ranko" by Duncan Zillman and "Twice in a Millennium" by Kevin Hammel had place, if not exactly as in the original SRverse.  
2. The events of any other sequesls didn't happen. After they joined the sailor-suited warriors, Ranma and Akane fought two major enemies: Jadeite and Galaxia. Guess who raised the former from his eternal sleep.  
3. I'm not sure about "Silver Sun" by VentureH as it isn't completed yet but I like this prequel and will try to comply with it if possible.

I am returning back to the manga canon for Ranma and stretching the anime canon of SM a bit (not that there is much to adhere to, with all the plot holes).  
1. Power levels of Ranma ½ characters now match the manga (conservative evaluation) instead of anime as before (ex.: in the anime the canonic Akane cracked a concrete fence. In the manga she smashed a 2-meter (6ft) hole in it. In the anime, Akane barely jumps. In the manga she jumps 3 meters (9ft). All other characters were similarly nerfed during the anime Adaptation Decay)  
2. Akane is NOT physically stronger than girl Ranma. Quite to the contrary.  
3. Akane is still FAR below Ranma in martial arts mastery, with some rare exceptions specific to sparring in their Senshi forms.  
4. Ranma has nothing against the seifuku. This fic diverges from the manga around its later parts where Ranma already stopped protesting much and often takes incentive to looking good when he's a girl, voluntarily donning quite risque outfits. "If you got it, flaunt it," his vanity tells him, and he obliges.  
5. Ranma is stronger and tougher than the Senshi, he can jump much higher than them or Akane, but he rarely does that. On the other hand, the Senshi magical techniques are generally stronger than martial arts ki blasts. They also have a profound anti-demonic purifying effect. The Senshi are a kind of empowered miko, with corresponding strengths and weaknesses.  
6. The Outer Senshi can teleport by themselves.

I have retconned the first eleven chapters. As a result, this first chapter may feel like too much exposition. It's because I crammed into it all the major changes, for the sake of my old time readers who have to re-read it and it alone to catch on the differences against the previous version.

**Chapter 1  
The Last Straw for Destiny's Back**

"Solar blaze!"

An explosion of shattering rock spewed a column of billowing dust visible from a far under the harsh glare of sun, its rays sharp and biting here high up in the mountains. A passing mujahedin shivered adjusting the kalashnikov slung over his shoulder and urging his donkey to go faster as he recited a hasty prayer to the Almighty. The efreets appeared again, summoning flame and luring the faithful into temptation with their obscene phantoms.

Meanwhile the raven haired girl in a blue skirt was tumbling away, dodging the plasma projectile in a leap, having anticipated both her opponent aiming off and the correction her opponent had taken anticipating her dodge. Not even touching the ground, she fired off her own projectile: "Rainbow Gust!" just before disappearing behind a rocky ridge.

Her opponents dodged the sparkling multicolored charge of energy with contemptuous ease as she dashed towards a rocky ridge with inhuman speed. This girl was similarly short, her fiery-red hair done up in a Chinese pigtail. Her seifuku was similar in appearance, if a bit more elaborate: a white leotard, white gloves coming from under simple golden bracers, a pair of crimson sandals, the central strip reaching from between her toe and digits up almost to the girl's knee, connected with golden studs to the rings of leather encircling her legs. Her white pleated skirt didn't reach mid-thigh, outlined with scarlet piping and double trim of scarlet and crimson. There were two large bows of crimson color — on her chest and the small of her back — the latter one trailing two rather long ribbons while the former had a rather peculiar stone nested in its center, bright yellow like a four-pointed star of solidified flame. All of it was now ragged, colors almost indistinguishable under the dust mixed with sweat. The left shoulder pad in the form of a small decorative wing was missing entirely showing a scraped shoulder. The battle had been raging for hours now.

Reaching the ridge with great leaps the fiery haired girl makes a huge, impossible jump rotating in the air, facing left along the ridge top. A ball of magically conjured plasma began swelling between her outstretched palms: "Solar..."  
"Rainbow..."

Damn, it seems she was outmaneuvered. Her opponent was close, much closer than she had anticipated. Well, the leap over the ridge top was half risk, half brazenness.

"Blaze!"  
"Gust!"

The girls shouted at the same moment as they let their charges fly.

Redirected in the last fraction of a second, the charges intercepted each other, detonating mightily and throwing up a huge dust cloud. Which, it seems, was the intention of the raven-haired girl from the beginning. She darted through the dust cloud intent of catching the flame-haired one by surprise while the latter was still moving through the air, along a predictable trajectory, unable to dodge properly.

But the fiery haired one couldn't be caught so easily. She calmly dodged the raven haired one's magical blast, even blinded by dust as she was, and from an awkward angle. Then she turned the battle into a melee where she had a decisive advantage. The raven haired girl just gritted her teeth as she bet on her slight edge in speed.

(シーンブレイク)

She was always fast. So fast, she kept outrunning herself, ever looking an awkward, crook-handed gorilla. Her innate speed, barely understood by her, negating itself like a car skidding off the road going into a turn too fast. The cooking failures filling every thing alive with dread, the constant stumbling and sprained ankles, the ugly mutant towels and other horrors of handcraft — these all, as it turned out later, stemmed from the hurry-scurry, from inability to control her own speed. And the worse she did the harder she pushed for success driving herself deeper into the vicious circle.

She couldn't say herself why it enraged her so much when he called her slow.

Accepting the challenge of the purple-haired amazon she suffered a shameful defeat. Shameful not because that girl was two or three times stronger and knew techniques of martial shiatsu. Oh no. Her shame was in opening the battle with a classical move designed for a slow and strong enemy, classically losing against the fast and agile Chinese bane. In putting everything into a straight right punch, utterly transparent and visible from a kilometer. Granted, if it connected... _If._·The amazon avoided it by jumping over her head, just like her fiance did in their first sparring. Only this time it didn't end with just a friendly finger jab at the back of her head.

No, the purple-haired bane wasn't 'superhumanly' fast as her exagerration loving future father-in-law was telling. She saw it perfectly clear: the opponent landing behind her, the two hands blurring towards her head. She just couldn't do anything, overextended, completely opened like an unskilled newbie.

Then there was a flash in her head, like a lightning. And the blackness of unconsciousness. She learned it later how the Chinese girl brainwashed her, working for almost a minute on her insensate body paralyzed by a double finger strike at her temples. Fifty six seconds, what's 'superhumanly fast' here? She now could do better, having gone through the Chestnuts Fist training, having long ago defeated that rival. But the lesson she did learn, slowly and with too many repeats, but she did learn it. The speed alone wasn't enough, even having finally mastered her speed, her innate 1

(シーンブレイク)

The scratched and bruised girls in dusty and ragged sailor suits half-rolled, half-dashed along the rocky ground leaving a trail of dust, arms and legs flashing in a whirlwind of techniques that would make Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee die of envy. Strikes able to shatter a concrete slab sound like a machine-gun fire. The raven haired one tried desperately to break away, but everything was in vain, her slight edge in speed was useless against her smaller opponent's advantage in experience and mastery. Abusing their uncanny regenerative ability able to mend even the broken bones in a matter of hours if not minutes, the pigtailed sailor-suited warrior held nothing back, unleashing a hailstorm of potentially crippling blows at the blue-skirted girl. She held for a while, on pure stubbornness, but the fight was too uneven.

They would never employ this insanely effective - and dangerous - method of training back when they were but mere mortals. Now, it was a completely different matter. Not a year ago they have ascended, becoming the Sailor Senshi, the magical champions of their planet.

(シーンブレイク)

It all began in times forgotten, at the dawn of the Universe, when first seeds of Life were born of the Primordial Chaos. The ephemeral self-contradictory irregularities in the flow of entropy, they fed on the very thing that should have dispelled them eroding them and washing away. And yet, the newborn Life had the gall to hold on, building in complexity, using the very flow to move against it like a sailboat going tack and tack upwind.

The Chaos would have swept it away eventually, if not for the amazing transformation some of the ephemeral constructs underwent. Winding tighter and tighter under the pressure of entropy, these gained the hardiness of a diamond. And so the Star Seeds were born, heralding an eventual coming of the Sailor Age. Splitting the flow of Chaos, the Seeds allowed their lesser brethren to procreate and grow strong under their veil. Not having anything bigger than a bacteria to represent them, the Seeds manifested at first as supernatural anomalies. Sometimes it was an unexplainable fluctuation generating a bubble of cosmos with different properties allowing the Life to emerge and prosper. Sometimes it was an anomalous planet keeping, despite all odds, a circular orbit and reflecting even the strongest radiation with its mighty magnetic field. Sometimes it was an exceptionally successful mutation allowing the evolution to make a whole quantum leap forward...

In essence it was the magic in its pure, undiluted form. The will to live, even unconscious yet, clashing against the unyielding laws of nature... And making them yield.

When the age of sapient life came, the Star Seeds gained, at last, bodily avatars among the races evolving under their protection. Demigods, bare-handed heroes able to beat the monsters of Chaos who threatened their planets, they soon found their ability to travel across the galaxy faster than light, thus creating a loose but still united network of civilizations. Just a millennium later, a first step towards the inescapable failure was made: establishing the institution of Sailor Warriors that replaced the blind destiny with a conscious choice. The flow of fate has been changed forever, the demigod protectors weren't born naturally anymore but were instead chosen among the heroes deserving to accept the power of a planetary crystal into their soul. Serenity the Silver of Terra, one of the first and most powerful of them, foresaw the possible consequences of such liberties. But neither she, nor any other had it in themselves to step down. To stop doing what they were doing. For each step towards the light ended so much pain, pulled their charges out of such a pit of suffering, that no human being would bring themselves to make a single step backwards. So they continued pushing the Chaos further and further away from their home worlds, building its resistance to intolerable levels. To walk this way and not see where it would eventually lead, one had to be blind. To turn back, one had to not be a human.

In the end, the Chaos took its revenge rolling across the Galaxy in a tremendous wave of destruction. The kingdoms of light fell, the Serenity's Silver Millennium sharing their fate. The Dark Age came. Thrown back into the stone age, the sapient races — the few that survived — began their long, painful climb back to the stars.

As time passed, many Star Seeds found new avatars or reincarnated their old ones. The age of Sailor Warriors was tentatively returning into the Galaxy, the avatars standing against the chaossspawn again, waging the battle that cannot be won, that can just be fought. Because they were fighting against the very cosmos, with their teeth and nails taking from it the right to live for themselves and their loved ones.

The most striking, selfless and stupid was the heroic deed of Sailor Galaxia, the strongest of the Sailor Senshi. By attempting to seal the chaos of the entire galaxy inside herself, by trying to defeat that which cannot be defeated, she gave thousands of sapient races a chance to bloom unhindered, in peace and safety... Only to scythe them down by her own hand when the chaos finally won subverting her from inside.

Only the perseverance of Sailor Sol and the all-encompassing kindness of Sailor Moon allowed to stop the destruction on the last edge, preventing Galaxia from destroying Earth, the last living planet left in the galaxy. What they experienced that day left its traces, no a defender of Solar system was left unchanged.

(シーンブレイク)

The raven-haired girl, athletic with well-defined muscles, should by all appearances be surpassing her opponent in strength. Her movements and reaction were lightning-fast, untraceable for the eyes of even the best martial artists. But the fiery haired girl, as as athletic but more shapely and unbelievably flexible, flowed away from her strikes like quicksilver. Elusive and deadly, when she was striking back her strength was no lesser.

When the tangle of girls finally stopped, the dust subsiding around them, the raven-haired warrior found herself lying face down, with her opponent holding her in an unbreakable submission hold, her hand wrenched back painfully, a hard knee stabbing into the small of her back.

She tried to get free, then slumped in defeat: "All right, you win."

Both were breathing raggedly, exhausted to the limit.

"Of course! I'm the best!" Sailor Sol, mundanely known as Ranma Saotome, was obnoxious as usual.

"Yeah, yeah. And who won before that? Just you wait!" Sailor Iris, mundanely known as Akané Tendou, was stubborn as always, never backing off, even when prudent.

"I'll always be better!" Sol informed her, releasing the hand of Iris. The raven-haired girl rolled onto her back, but Sol didn't hop off her, ending up straddling her waist. Iris blushed slightly when the fiery-haired nuisance bent down, looking at her from inches away... then broke the magic by pulling down her eyelid and sticking out her tongue. Iris giggled, squirming under the feather-light weight of her soul-mate. Their oh-so-intimate position made her remember, and she laughed, unable to hold it. What a great irony: when they first found themselves in this position, she wasn't amused at all...

(シーンブレイク)

That was the year of fear and anger. The year of strife and looming menace. The year when she waged the crusade against her natural enemy.

It's hard to believe that just a few words of that idiot were enough to rally them. Rejected by her for an uncounted time, he had his revenge in such a twisted way... Or it wasn't revenge and he just tried to achieve something. Who could know the ways his thoughts meander through the Kunou-sempai's brain eternally clouded with samurai romance?

One way or another, they have accepted the idea that the one who beats her will date her. They grabbed at that idea with an unhealthy vigor, unhealthy as everything of them. And so, day after day, month after month, she had to fight her way through a crowd of excited males. But they didn't stand a chance against her, even those wannabes from the karate club. Every day she entered the schoolyard leaving a heap of groaning bodies behind.

And there, each time, she was challenged by the instigator of this all. The one truly able to hold his own against her. And they fought, fist against wooden sword, and each time she won.

But the nagging doubt remained. Kunou clearly held back against her. Was it a noble gallantry? Or was the accursed male just biding his time, playing with his prey like a cat with a mouse? You never know what these creatures are thinking.

She had to be constantly on her guard, always tense. The enemy, ever watchful, lurked in the dark corners, waiting for a moment of weakness. The enemy peeked at times into the girls' locker room, receiving a united rebuff — but never giving up, never stopping salivating at her, always following her with their hungry eyes.

She got used to supplant her fear with rage, her temper rapidly worsening as a result. Akané had only one relief. A heir to a true martial arts school with its own doujo, she was the best fighter around. No one could best her.

And then her world shattered.

First, a girl appeared in their home, a girl with her fiery hair in a Chinese pigtail. That girl defeated her with a frightening ease. It was like fighting a phantom. 'It's good that you aren't a guy', she said her. The ominous, prophetic words. But that moment all she felt was relief. She was horrified to even think what would happen to her if one of these... male-things had such a battle prowess.

And then she entered the bathroom, the place she subconsciously deemed safe, where she could relax... She entered there disrobed, defenseless, not ready... Only to meet, face to face, a creature of her nightmares.

But that wasn't the most terrifying part, oh no. Soon she found out that the fiery-haired girl she almost made friends with was a lie. That she was in truth a cunning male cursed to turn into a girl with a splash of cold water. And worse: he was her fiancé. In other words, she was designated a fair game for him.

Her father betrayed her, just like that, sacrificing her to the beast for the sake of 'uniting the schools'. The sisters... Those she could understand. After all, who should stay in the line of fire if not her, the martial artist of the three?

Many things transpired after that. She came to terms with Ranma being around, almost befriending him. On the surface he was a decent person, if obnoxious. But she never forgot his true nature, lurking in the dark depths, waiting just for the right moment to overcome him. He was a weremale, a person with a rapist locked inside.

And he was hopelessly better than her.

Akané felt herself living in a house with a pet man-eating tiger. There were no safe places for her anymore. The fear built up bit by bit, boiling away with anger, pouring out with the brutal beatings the cement blocks received from her in the doujo. Yes, during the day she ruled, beating the beast again and again, subduing it, proving it to herself that she was the one in control, that the beast was tamed.

But the night... The night was the time of predators and were-creatures. She got an iron-clad proof one night. Waking up to find the... male-thing laying on top of her, already turned. Already ravenous. She felt his carnivorous heat even through the blanket separating them.

The horrifying situation was discharged with a brutal beating of the intruder with a bamboo sword. She barely heard his attempts to explain, seeing red in her fear-induced brutal rage. He was probably telling something about P-chan... note 2

(シーンブレイク)

"Hey, why are you laughing?" Sol asked her in confusion.

"Nevermind. I just remembered how we first met," Iris replied waving her concerns away. "Just to think of it, for how long I've been afraid to be left with you alone!"

Sol just blinked at first in confusion. Then she got it and frowned, offended. But the laugh of Iris was too contagious, and soon both were laughing out loud. The irony here was truly epic.

"We lost so much time," Iris drawled looking into the bottomless sky.

"Not a big deal, we now have all the time in the world," Sol said, smirking arrogantly. "Kinda destiny and stuff."

"Better watch it," Iris warned her. "Or it'll get into your head, you'll get careless and get yourself killed stupidly. I will..." she stuttered, "hurt then."

They have had a couple episodes where Sol missed her death by a hair's breadth by using her forbidden ultimate technique. Iris didn't want the repeat of that.

"Don't worry," Sol tried to divert the incoming blues. "You'll just ask Pluto to rewind time back, and..." She stopped short seeing her words having a reverse effect.

"I don't trust her," Iris said darkly. "Keeping us in the dark, withholding important things from us..."

(シーンブレイク)

Black lightning kept striking from the dark sky filled with a nauseatingly-lilac aurora. In return, shining points of torn out star seeds kept floating up all over the city signifying the human lives cut short.

Iris was fast, inhumanly fast. She easily dodged the slow and sluggish, from her perspective, double charges of golden energy. It was probably only thanks to her that the four Inners were still alive, their Star Seeds not added to Sailor Galaxia's collection.

And yet she felt so powerless! Nothing, _nothing!_·could even scratch this juggernaut, this unstoppable force in a golden sailor fuku. Surely not the best technique of Iris that was practically a blast of air, all pretty and sparkling but against a real enemy doing no better than Ranma's 'Tiger Domineering' or Ryouga's 'Lion Roar Blast'.

She felt a faint hope when the Starlights — who should have been long dead, so beaten up they were — gained their twenty-second breath putting all their power into an awesome combined strike.

Galaxia was threwn back. Galaxia bled. And then... Then she smiled, her smile making the hair of Iris to stand on its ends, and proved that she was holding back up to that moment. She went scything through the city, bringing whole buildings down with one blow.

All the while the black lightning kept striking from the nauseatingly-lilac darkness. And the shining dots kept floating up over the city. Iris desperately, against all reason, kept hoping that the dojou withstood this, that the people precious to her were all right.

But then Sol returned in a flash of teleport, her face darkened from grief. Iris understood it without any words. They weren't spared. They didn't have a family anymore — except each other. Except their friends. And their Princess.

But even that they would have only if they could win, could defeat the immeasurably strong enemy, the invincible enemy against whom Sol's strongest techniques were useless.

(シーンブレイク)

They performed a miracle. They won. And the victory tasted like ashes. Sun emerged through the dissipating darkness, its radiance shining upon Eternal Sailor Moon... shining upon the ruins stretching up to the horizon, the crushed remains of what only this morning was the capital of Japan. The decorative pseudo-angelic wings on Usagi's suit looked like a mockery, her face full of deep, unquenchable sadness.

There were no bodies on the streets. People whose Star Seed is torn out just vanish into the thin air as they cease to be. Those few who were especially unlucky, whose destruction was stopped in the last moment, they turned into monstrous mockeries of themselves, into _phages_·whose Star Seed returned, blackened by the brief exposure to the real world, corrupted by its own impurity.

The insane phages roamed the devastated earth destroying each other. Hunting the rare human survivors. Thousands of phages across Japan. Millions across the world. And only Usagi was able to turn them back into people, by using all her strength. One at a time. Maybe a dozen or two in a day.

The darkness was gone and the sun shining on the planet that became one immense graveyard. The humankind was entering a new era and its future was never this bleak during all its history.

Iris sat curled up from the pain in her heart, clutching at Sol like a life-line. She didn't even had strength to cry. Everyone was silent, crushed by the magnitude of the disaster. In the dead silence they could hear from afar the yelling of phages full of insane merriment.

That's why, when Sailor Pluto appeared suddenly from hell knows where like a jack-in-the-box — Pluto, who hung in parts unknown all this time — and proclaimed, with that insufferable condescendence of hers, that she will sacrifice her life but make everything right... Iris didn't feel any gratitude towards her. Iris saw red, she wanted to grab the woman by her collar and ask why didn't she intervene before?

She did just that when they stood amidst the intact Tokyo, and everything was again right in the world, and her sisters were alive, and Ranma's mom alive. To her outrage, Setsuna replied that she has no idea what has just happened and vanished saying that she has to check the records of the Space-time Door!

Akané's resentment towards her just grew from . 3

(シーンブレイク)

Ami walked a crowded Juuban street recalling her recent talk with Pluto. Of the whole team, only she was able if not understand then at least imagine the complexity of the matters the lone Senshi's has to deal with.

The multi-dimensional force fields, the mind-numbingly complex dependency graphs. The system so complex that a human brain could grasp only a tiny part of it at a time, leading to the dangerous temptation of building and operating a simplified model. The need of complex transformations beyond the mere mortals' ability — just to get a representation suitable for the human senses. Despite having some understanding of the dimensional physics, having built a working portal by scientifically enhanced trial and error herself, the time was still beyond her grasp. She even doubted if Pluto herself had a full understanding of it.

There was one more thing only Ami could fully comprehend and feel sympathetic for. Not so long ago, Setsuna had made a very tough choice. The right one, but still weighing heavily on her.

For thousands of years Pluto stood a lone sentinel beside the Door. Staying beyond the time flow, she was able to look into the future, to change the past. Separated from the world, she had a great freedom of action, her own thread of fate not being woven into the fabric of time. But could a human being withstand such a burden of loneliness? Could one who withstood it remain human?

Pluto had made her choice, joining the battle, joining the goings of the world. Making herself it's part. The Senshi gained a mighty comrade in arms. Pluto gained something priceless: her friends, her family.

And lost nine tenths of her abilities.

Woven into the fabric of time, she could no more look into the future freely. Knowing too much became an impermissible luxury for her, it could create a paradox and destroy everything she held dear.

Giving the team her power of a Senshi, Setsuna deprived the team of an ally able to shuffle their very fate.

But maybe this was for the better?

"I fear to imagine that somebody could be foolish enough to meddle with Time just for their convenience", Setsuna told her. "Any manipulation comes with a price — a price usually much heavier than any gain one gets."

Ami avowed her surprise. There were two times when Pluto acted on the complete contrary to these words, first allowing the Senshi to travel into the future, second rewinding the time itself back. It was the mysterious Senshi of the Underworld, after all, who saved the majority of the Earth population all but exterminated by Galaxia. And after having done that she says these things?

"I'm but a human," Setsuna replied with a sad smile. "I cannot always act as the cold logic dictates. When the mortal danger threatens everything dear to me, I'm unable to think of the possible consequences or the price to pay afterward... The very fact that I continue to exist is a miracle. I'm glad but... also scared. Because it means someone has yet to pay for my deeds."

(シーンブレイク)

Pluto frowned as she re-tuning the space-time Door for the uncounted time. She didn't have a slightest idea what she was searching for. She didn't have a clue what made her wake up so early and go to comb the time stream time and again. Everything was eerily calm, but she couldn't get rid of a very bad feeling. This felt too much like a calm before the storm. Too serene a calm for it to be an ordinary 4

After all, there is no other planet where the Life thrives so strongly. There is no other planet that attracts from the dark abyss of space things the man was not meant to know.

There brighter is the light, the deeper is the shadow.

That's why Earth had an unheard of team of eleven Sailor Warriors when the average habitable planet had only two, rarely three. And yet, that was barely enough. Metallia, Death Fantom, Pharaoh 90, Galaxia... The mighty spawn of Chaos were blindly persistent in their attempts to snuff out the lone candle of Life.

Pluto hoped against reason that she didn't disturb the Cosmic Balance when she broke all taboos saving billions of lives. Time and again she felt the pain of a doubt. Should she have trusted the Princess and waited until she performs a miracle...? But no. Their future Queen wasn't ready yet. She didn't yet have that limitless power which could be glimpsed in neo-Serenity. The todays Usagi... She felt incomplete. Even in her highest form, achieved by a miracle, Eternal Sailor Moon was no match for Galaxia. Only the desperate efforts of Sol who delayed and distracted the mighty adversary allowed Moon to get close... And cleanse the tortured Senshi of the chaos possessing her.

Galaxia was long and irrevocably dead, having turned to dust with a grateful smile when Sailor Moon purified her. And yet, the doubt remained. Pluto had a feeling that everything should have turned differently. That they all should have died and Serenity should've won alone by ascending to her next, ultimate form. But the vague doubts are one thing and the billions of lives lost are on a completely different scale. There was no saving them except turning the time back. It wasn't fitting for Princess Serenity to succeed a planet comprising of one big graveyard.

The Cosmic Balance... The cold and unforgiving fundamental force which keeps the universe from destroying itself, known by man as a set of conservation laws. Of energy, of entropy, of momentum... But alas, the conservation law Pluto unknowingly disturbed wasn't of such mundane things but of matters hopelessly beyond even her comprehension, belonging to such powerful yet intangible things as fate and destiny. And the destiny of the entire world was rapidly approaching the breaking point.

(シーンブレイク)

Unseen by Pluto, unknown for her, undetectable by means know to science nor magic, a titanic bulk of frozen time rested in the depths of the unexplored dimensions. The last monument of civilization foolish enough to play with time, to treat it as a mere technology, as a cheap material for their dreams. That civilization was no more. It never existed, erased from the time stream by their own creation obediently executing an erroneous command. Yet the creation itself persisted, still following the last instructions it never received from nobody. Exist. Expand. Stabilize the world. Protect from meddling in the past. And the incredible machine, woven itself of threads of fate, kept striving against all odds with a mechanical stubbornness — unaware that its existence was impossible, not caring that its goal was unreachable. That simply wasn't in its program. And it survived, absorbing in the process all the time and space it could reach, assimilating a multitude of habitable worlds. It wasn't evil. It wasn't aggressive. It wasn't even self-aware. It was a very simple and robust machine following a very simple program.

A machine that many beings were able to hack into and use its power to their advantage. Unless they were foolish enough to try to seize the control over it all. Even the memory of those fools was then erased from the pages of time by a guardian paradox circuit. For the core of this machine had a truly absolute protection: everyone who would be able to hack it were erased before they were even born.

It's not surprising then that most of its "users", the beings who were able to control a fraction of the machine's energy, were either dumb or narrow-minded. Or both. For they were in fact mere pawns used by the machine on the way to its pre-programmed goals. Alas, that didn't prevent these creatures from being clever and wily.

One such being used a nasty trick to fish for its living prey outside, among the living universe, snatching it through the chinks of reality where multiverses with vastly different laws conflicted touching each other. And now this petty and foolish freak waited in a gleeful anticipation, having set the lunker it didn't even comprehend on the collision course with one more external universe.

The universe that, unlike all the previous ones, had such an element as Sailor Senshi, mighty braces on the chaos-soaked fabric of cosmos. No one would be able to predict the result of such a collision.

(シーンブレイク)

On the edge of her vision, Ami caught an ungainly sight: a group of youngsters slobbering over a hentai manga in a narrow side alley. Outwardly she, of course, didn't show any reaction, but internally she scrunched her face in disgust. The imbeciles... It's good that things like this aren't possible in the real world. She asked Setsuna about this once.

"Myself, I of course didn't see that. It happened aeons before I was born," the Senshi of time told her. "I can't even validate the veracity of this ancient legend... A legend about times so long past they were all but forgotten even in the Silver Millennium. In that time, there was no more and no less darkness in the world that we have now, but that darkness was disgusting and brutal. The demons warped the bodies and souls of people, goaded them to commit acts of unimaginable depravity. So there came the moment when the mother of our Queen Serenity came to battle against the arch-demon Y'gorong'yag. She stepped to the arena surrounded by her former subjects, their bodies twisted and warped and melted together into ugly lumps covered with eyes, with legs growing out of their mouths and mouths opening on their palms, and other vile mutations we'd better not know about. The nameless Queen held the Silver Crystal close to her heart and uttered only two words: Never Again!"

"But what happened after that?" Ami asked Setsuna who suddenly fell silent.

"After that... After that there is our now. There have never been any battle, there have never been any Y'gorong'yag, and not even a trace of that Queen is left like she never existed. Just like Usagi turning time back during her battle against Beryl, rewriting the history, that pre-Serenity rewrote the very foundations of our universe. The evil became clean and tidy. The monsters in our world don't turn people into slimy abominations, just rip their souls out crystallizing these into precious gems. They don't spit brain-eating maggots, just throw razor-sharp candy and suffocate us with fast hardening icing. Even the great demons from beyond, like that Pharaoh Ninety, have to play by these rules.

"Alas, death is still death, no matter how tidy you make it. Such fundamental principles could not be changed, no matter how many wishes you make upon the Silver Crystall.

"Well, to remedy that there are us, the Sailor Senshi."

Ami started, awoken from her reminiscences. What was that, someone screaming nearby? The horrified people running in other direction triggered a conditional reflex. Dodging into a narrow side alley she transformed and opened up her computer to begin scanning right from the cover. Looking at the data she frowned: there was only a random static. Was it some sort of jamming, or...? Mercury hastily sneaked to the alley exit, carefully peeking outside. What she saw made her jerk back and flatten herself against the wall, her heart slamming against her chest like she was not a hardened warrior but a wallflower who stumbled onto a group of drunken thugs in a dark alley. But... But these things should be _impossible_!

A shaky finger pressed the emergency all-call button on the communicator. "Mercury here." she, with a strange aloofness, noticed a tinge of panic in her hoarse whisper. "I need support _now_! I'm right in the center of the shopping district, there's a tentacle demon attacking! I repeat, a tentacle demon! He already got... hostages! I'm coming out! Mercury over!"

(シーンブレイク)

September 27, 2009.  
40percent rewritten March 17, 2012. Finally re-translated April 01, 2012.

**Comments:**

###

**1**  
A canonic fact: Akané managed to see as Shampoo strikes her from behind. Moreover, the brainwashing took fifty-six seconds — I checked it by both the Japanese original of the manga and the VIZ translation — not "five or six" as some crook-handedly made anime subs say.

Meaning Shampoo knocked Akané out first, then performed brainwashing on her unconscious body. Otherwise Akané would at least try to resist during that almost a minute.

**2**  
However important for understanding Akané's character, the signs — rare but undeniable — that she was afraid Ranma would rape her, these were mercilessly censored out of the anime. Remember that story with hypnotic mushrooms? Where Akané sits watching some musical playing the thematic "yapp-pa-pa", then she sneezes and Ranma _!glomps!_·her? Well in the manga she was watching a late-night movie nervously annihilating cookies as on the screen, a guy started tearing clothes off a hapless girl. And right then Ranma glomped her. While they were all alone in the house. Just imagine how bad a scare it should have been for her, worse than a werewolf suddenly jumping off the screen into your room!

**3**  
Because that Pluto gave her life and didn't return with the others to the past. Of course the past Setsuna didn't have a clue! Even a slowpoke would figure this out.

Akané, you ingrateful idiot!

**4**  
Well, initially in the manga, the Time-space Door is an artefact of sealing. Its main purpose is to reinforce the weak points in the interdimensional barriers to prevent various _things_·from creeping in from the parallel universes. By some reason people tend to forget the "space-" part and think that this thing is exclusively for manipulating time.

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— Hraefn - huge thanks for an in-depth constructive critic  
— Climhazard  
— Н. Кута  
— Kinematics  
— LawOhki  
— Orphus users (21 bugs so far)


	2. The Clash

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 2,  
The Clash.**

_(half an hour ago)_

The future was smooth like a mirror. Not a slightest ripple, not a trace of outside influence.

And yet, her intuition practically screamed danger. Her thousands years of experience tried to tell her something. If she just could place what it was.

Pluto adjusted the view port matrix one more time, looking at the multi-dimensional weave of the universe from yet another perspective. Still nothing, only the usual slow waves of background noises. Oh, if just things were so simple as most people think: look into the future, see the threat, take counter-measures.

In practice... In practice, the Universe is an unimaginably tangled weave made of individual threads of fate of every thing alive. Like an infinite web, like a multi-dimensional field of moss, living, breathing, changing. Just look too closely, and it's so easy to lose yourself in the details, to stray away from the goal of your search. The individuals threads of fate are always in chaotic motion, somehow similar to the Brownian motion of the water molecules: these dash around frantically while the great river consisting of them flows slowly but surely.

There are exceptions in this weave, most notable of which is the shining silver thread of Princess Serenity, then Usagi, then neo-Queen Serenity. Thin just like the others, yet carrying an incredible power, like a million volt power line connecting the distant past with the foggy future. In fact, the entire web of fates of this planet is hanging on it.

Pluto switched the mode again, now looking at the time stream in its physical guise. This slightly rippling surface was like a surface of river flowing from the past to the future. One could see the recently traversed rapids behind and the even, clear way ahead.

A deceptive, dangerously lulling picture. For the number of dimensions is almost infinite — not the worlds in the subtopian understanding, but dimensions: the lines in the world space _perpendicular to every other one._·Nobody knows how the world changes along most of these if you stray from our zero coordinate. Because the visible world, and the world known to Pluto, of which it is just a small part, is in itself just an infinitely, infinitely, infinitely small part of the Whole.

Still, what was it that felt so wrong?

Pluto peered so intently into the time stream that she lost herself in the infinite details that would put any fractal to shame, overlooking the very thing she was searching for. There was a great wave rising right around her, but she missed it like a ship in the open sea doesn't notice a tsunami it passes over. All because of the immense size of the almost flat hill on the water.

The river of time of their living world met an unplanned obstacle. It being far below the surface yet, the time flowed around it resiliently, forming just slightest eddies.

(シーンブレイク)

**(External connection requested. Authenticating...  
Success. User Ahs-Asthat-Taheet, access level 3.  
Establishing connection...)**

_A slightest miscalculation cost Happousai dearly. Ukyou's battle spatula smacked him with a resounding clang. Thrown right at the feet of the oncoming horde of angry girls, he was..._·

**(Syncing time streams... Success, cutoff threshold 800 Petawatts.  
Connection established, temporal corrections quota 150 Petawatts.  
Current load 3 Watts.)**

_Deftly dodging Ukyou's battle spatula, Happousai leaped for the rooftops ditching the horde of angry girls: too much of a good thing would be good for nothing. Once he lost his pursuers, the old pervert started bounding towards the Tendous..._·

Pluto frowned noticing the increasing disturbances in the time stream. Their origin remained unclear but such 'insignificant' fluctuations posed an immense risk. More disturbing was the fact that she never, in all the thousand years of her watch, saw anything like this. Not knowing how to react she activated the soft counter-measures. Some mechanisms inside the Door came online after thousands years of inactivity, changing the second derivatives of the thin attributes of time, increasing its viscosity. While the principles behind this process were complex enough to blow the minds of mere mortals, it was in essence an equivalent to the sailors of the past centuries pouring oil into the raging sea to calm the waves. Alas, with a similarly negligible effect.

_Once he lost his pursuers, the old pervert thought of returning to the Tendous, but the weather was nice, so he decided for a little walk. Down on the street he met a merchant selling gold fishes..._·

**(Warning, temporal interference!  
Increasing uplink power to one Megawatt.)**

_...he met a merchant selling various esoteric incenses. The old man got interested: he had an ungrateful pupil to punish, after all. The man in fedora had a suitable incense in his stock, so Happousai headed home holding a..._·

Pluto have grasped, at last, the nature and scale of the incoming disaster. Having her hair not turning gray only thanks to the Senshi protective magic, her eyes wide in horror, she looked forward like a captain of a ship going full speed toward a reef that was noticed just a moment ago... When it's absolutely too late to try to avoid collision.

On no, the river of time still flowed quietly. But these abnormal side currents, the increasing number of eddies ahead... There, under the surface, was coming something immense.

And she still didn't have a slightest idea what it was.

Of course Pluto didn't just stay put. She frantically switched the Door from view port to view port, but in all planes, in all slices of the continuum, no matter which plane she choose as the observable "surface", the picture stayed the same.

Whatever was coming, it was coming from beyond the known world, along one of the multitude of unexplored perpendiculars.

Throwing caution to the wind, Pluto activated the Door's emergency protocol. Artificial threads snaked into the past and the future, latching onto the living fabric, breaking someone's fates... But she had no time for sentiments now. The shining silver thread sang, straining more and more. If it snaps, everything is done for. Without it, the life on Earth has would have no chance of survival. After all, the interstellar abyss is not lifeless. From the beginning of Time it's inhabited by the hungry spawn of Primordial Chaos.

_...so Happousai headed home holding the golden medallion. The old hag who sold it to him looked a bit suspicious, but... Well, the artifact was surely worth a little risk. Just to think of it: to be able to steal bras from distance, right from their owners! A dream of every man, that's sure. The icing on the cake was the fact that he bought it dirt cheap. After all, you need to be a ki master to use it... Happousai cackled. He was a ki master, all right._·

_Returning home, the old pervert didn't even waste time sorting his haul. Pulling out the medallion..._·

**(Warning! Temporal interference increases!  
Increasing uplink power to 80 Gigawatts.)**

_...the old pervert didn't even waste time sorting his haul. Pulling out the Beherit he found laying on the street..._·

Pluto shuddered stumbling back from the Door. Ahead, a huge monolith tore through the mirror of time stream and loomed, smoking. A jagged, immovable iceberg of frozen time that moved but _did not flow_. The keeper of the time-space Door felt sick to the bone: this thing was so _wrong_, so unnatural, so impossible...

The time stream around the iceberg started freezing, the weave hardening, the threads of fate tearing, re-connecting, tearing again in a nerve-wracking cacophony. The shining silver thread emitted a blood-curdling whine catching on the jagged, unyielding edges. Any more, and it snaps. And that's the end.

Failing to suppress a cry of terror, Pluto made a reckless decision. Sol and Saturn weren't the only ones who had an ultimate attack in their sleeve. Oh no, the Senshi of Beyond had her own repertoire of spells allowing her to put all her power into one suicidal, _final_·technique.

"DARK.."

Hurricane winds swirled around the raised staff howling like hordes of wraiths rushing to obey their patron, her mane of dark green hair flapping in the wind like a flame.

"ORB..."

A mighty orb of darkness started coalescing at the tip of the staff. The recoil from this spell will be terrible, much worse than that time over the Mugen academy. But only one thing mattered for Pluto now: the silver thread strained to its last limit chafing against the razor-sharp edges with a dying sing. How would she return from wherever the recoil will catapult her, she'll think of that later. If she survives.

"ENTOMB‼！"

Stepping through the Door, the Senshi of time superimposed her three-dimensional mortal shell onto the cosmic weave such way that the required dimension, the tip of the iceberg became a forward vector for her. And in that last moment, releasing the blast that took all her power, she could at last see clearly _what_·was opposing her. Luckily, the moment of understanding had been mercifully fleeting. Her eyes rolling up, the half-melted staff falling from her burnt fingers, Pluto dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

The mighty orb of dark energy crashed into the tip of the iceberg. The foreign anomaly rang under the force of the blow... It gave way, submerging a bit...

_...Pulling the golden egg out of the dusty chest where it rested for at least a century, Happousai gazed at the..._·

**(Alarm! Connection destabilizes!  
Deactivating the uplink power limiters!)**

Failing to achieve the impossible, the dark orb dispersed in brilliant motes of black light. And the iceberg surged up, tearing the future asunder, looming like a titanic wall, freezing the time to the very horizon of the observed universe.

It wasn't just a chunk of frozen time, nor it was a construct of some evil genius. It was the edge of a whole multiverse frozen billion years deep and wide, having practically infinite mass and energy.

Thankfully Pluto didn't see the cosmic sledgehammer slamming into the thin structures of her home world. Her listless body was swept away casually like a mosquito by a freight train.

The past of the whole universe has been frozen solid making the time travel fundamentally impossible. The future disappeared in a fog of uncertainty. Such thing as fate ceased to be. The prophecies lost their meaning. The fated people lost the power guiding them.

Only the shining silver thread persisted by some miracle, emerging from the ice and right away disappearing in the fog. It didn't hold the life of the human kin anymore. It wasn't necessary for the continued existence of the world anymore. And yet, it continued to shine stubbornly.

_...Pulling the Beherit out of the dusty chest where it rested for at least a century, Happousai gazed at the strange thing. The protrusions in the form of facial features randomly scattered across the surface of the egg-shaped pendant started moving until they formed a face. The Beherit opened its eyes and the abyss gazed back at the old pervert._·

**(Connection stabilized, current load 182 Petawatts.  
Warning: Level 3 user Ahs-Asthat-Taheet, you have exceeded your quota by 32 Petawatts. Your quota will be decreased to 100 Petawatts for the next 100 years.)**

(シーンブレイク)

Happousai backed away from the suddenly activating artifact. The Beherit opened its mouth, emitting a scream surprisingly low and powerful for such a small thing. A moment later the artifact exploded with slime, swelling with a splorch into a huge, slimy hulk of a huge demon looking like a more ugly version of Jabba the Hutt adorned with a fringe of wriggling tentacles.

"W..WHAT...?！" shocked, Happousai stumbled back. He, of course, expected a seductive demoness in a self-replenishing lingerie. "Turn it back, I didn't ask for a tentacle demon!" He lost his balance and fell, overcame with the unimaginable stench of rotten musk. "Shoo... **koff** Go away, hell spawn!" he weakly waved at the demon to go away. Then he screamed: "Noooo! What have you... **koff** What have you done, you defiler! My silky darlings..."

Alas, it was too late. The demon was too big to fit in the room, he has already overturned everything around, matting most of the grandpa's collection with his slime.

"You... You will pay!" Happousai cried out, offended to the depth of his soul. "Happou Dai Karin!"

The demon smirked at the tiny firecracker.

He gathered his brains back together, regenerating the damage in an instant. Now he looked at Happousai differently. Not with contempt, but with interest. A very unhealthy interest. Then he drawled: "You're strong, that I admit. You could even survive." His smile made the old pervert feel ice crawling along his spine. "Well, my unwilling accomplice, let's have a little fun then..."

"NOOOO!" was the only objection Happousai had time to vocalize. The tentacles lashed at him, knocking the last firecracker out of his hands and wrapping him up.

"Well-well, what do we have here?" The demon smiled at him.

"Begone!" Happousai thrashed helplessly, held by appendages seeping with an undeniably _male_·twisted energy. "No...!" He read the demon's intent in his piercing gaze, seeing the depths his rotten soul has fallen into. "Begone...! Don't... **koff** don't you dare, you... You, _abomination_!" For the first time real, honest tears wet the old pervert's wrinkled features. "Yes, I... I allowed myself a little too much...! Just an innocent distractions of an old man...! But I... NO! I'd never fell so low! You, monster! What you conceive is unforgivable! Come on, break my neck now, for I'll never concede, I will... fight... stop you..." He fell silent, his strength completely drained. "What... waiting for... kill...me..."

The demon just grinned in reply. It wasn't in his intention to let his new toy get off so easily.

(シーンブレイク)

When the other inhabitants of the house found their courage to peek into his room they, to their sheer luck, didn't find anybody — just a total wreckage covered with a nauseatingly stinky slime.

"I'm not letting her to clean there," Nabiki said while tending to Kasumi, who tried valiantly to to exactly that but just fainted. "Father, you'd better call a decontamination team."

(シーンブレイク)

_(the present)_

From inside the time stream, from the corner of the Prime material plane called Earth, the wave of radical changes washing over the universe was practically unnoticeable. Like the passengers of a train are usually unaware about tracks switching far ahead or a stray godzilla crushing the return path behind, most people didn't feel anything unusual. Even the Senshi stayed bisfuly unaware until the emergency all-call signal interrupted their daily activities.

Mercury stood there in the narrow alley, her back flat against the wall. She just couldn't will herself to move. The fear the thing out there instilled in her was so primal... There was a hint of ringing in her ears, the situation felt more and more like a bad dream. I'm starting to delude myself, she noted clinically in the logical part of her mind.

Terrified screams reached her from the street, followed by the sounds of something ripping. She couldn't dawdle here anymore. Taking a deep, shuddering breath she launched "Shabon Spray" right from the side alley. The dense magical for rolled out billowing in all directions and quickly saturating the narrow street. Right after that she, as quickly as she could, ran to the middle of the street, where she stilled. She herself was seeing through the fog clearly, albeit everything looked to her like washed out silhouettes. The demon, on the other hand, should have been completely disoriented, not seeing nor hearing a thing.

Should have. But the next moment he shot a couple tentacles that slapped wetly against the edges of the alley she came from. Could he have detected her by hearing? Mercury crouched, ready to tumble aside, trying to get her heartbeat under control. The fog dampened all the sound, the sobs and screams of the captive girls reached her muffled. The clearly heard sploshing of the retracting tentacles made a sharp contrast to that.

Is he able to negate the dampening nature of the fog? Or did he just notice where the fog initially came from? Or was he really able to hear her steps? Mercury stood perfectly still, not risking even a fraction of a second of distraction.

The demon stayed put for a while, then, with a splosh, he began crawling down the middle of the street. 'So the sound reaches clearly, and this effect is most probably bi-directional,' thought Mercury. 'I have to know if he is able to track my movement, and if yes, then how exactly. Without this knowledge I cannot choose the suitable tactic.' Currently she had a several unsolvable tasks. She had to hold on until the support arrives, she had to prevent enemy from harming the hostages, then, preferably, she had to gather enough information to formulate a battle plan right when her comrades arrive.

If he is able to drain energy instantly, like the Jadeite's siege youma, then I cannot risk harming him, she thought tensely, That will lead to the death of the hostages. I have to make him release them somehow. But this demon isn't as dumb as the youma and daimohns. These never thought to hide behind a hostages. What do I do? Attract fire to myself? She shivered. First, I need to try scanning him somehow. But I can't do that without knowing if he could detect me if I stay put, distracted. But how do I check that? There's only the experimental way...

She crouched lower, putting herself in the position for a low start, facing left. If he could only hear her, he'll shoot at her current position. If he is also able to see her, he'll correct his aim in the direction she makes point of facing.

The demon was dangerously close now. She gulped down the lump in her throat, and stomped her foot loudly, exclaiming: "Stop, evil creature!". Then she stilled, tensed to the limit, waiting for a slightest hint of movement from the demon.

The gray, slug-like silhouette made a wet sound, a frantic movement on its right side like a dance of rabid worms. Mercury performed a desperate, awkward backward tumble. Well, where did he aim at?

The enemy shoot three tentacles at once: one at her former position, two others with anticipation of her movement to any side. The closest tentacle whizzed inches from her face, whipping her hair with the wind of its passage and assaulting her with the reek of rotten musk.

Staggering back both from the chilling fright and the stench, she stilled. Hearing, definitely. But the sight? Did he miss because he couldn't see her or did he just miscalculate the angle underestimating her speed? The enemy made a sploshing sound, reeling back his tentacles. Mercury noted idly that these were floating in the air defying gravitation. Well, this was a typical trait of all the magical monsters. Many youma, especially the plant based ones, were equipped with tentacles.

Still, the youma tentacles served a mere restraining role. But these... Mercury stopped breathing, her eyes fixed in fear on the appendage flying by. If the enemy sees her, he just has to bend it a little, and... She was very afraid the deafening heartbeat would give her away. And, shouldn't he have heard the sound of her landing?

The tentacle passed her harmlessly, disappearing back in the bloated bulk. Mercury couldn't hold a shuddering breath of relief.

"Gotcha!" the demon exclaimed in a gurgling voice.

Not risking a dodge to the side — who could say what a correction the enemy will make now? — she made a desperate vertical jump, grabbing an advertising board on the nearby lamppost with her free hand.

The demon shot two couples of tentacles, one to the position where he heard her gasp from, one towards the middle of the street. Then he pulled his tentacles back sharply, bending the pairs outwardly like a double hooks, thus covering almost entire width of the street. Mercury barely suppressed a shudder hearing a wet slap from the base of the lamppost.

She carefully put her computer into the subspace pocket chastising herself for not setting up a silent mode hot key. One accidental beep, and she's done for. Or would even the key tapping sound be enough? Mercury sharply felt the vulnerability of her position: the only possible maneuver was to release the board. Her arms weren't strong enough to jump up, onto the streetlamp. It was too risky to jump away by pushing with her feet off the lamppost, she wasn't _that_·agile... So the only way was down, all the five meters to the sidewalk, with nothing but gravitation to gain speed. That would take an eternity, and all that time she would be a perfect sitting duck.

"Don't hide," the demon cooed, gurgling. "I'll catch you anyway." His voice was full of disgusting arrogance. Mercury could even discern the victims — still passively tied to the sides of the prolonged hulk, to her relief. She made an effort of counting them precisely. During the coming rescue operation this information will be priceless. Three at the right side, four at the left.

"Come out, huntress," the demon gurgled again. "You'll like it, you'll see!"

She could hang there no longer: the fog wouldn't last forever, and with the demon continuing to slowly but surely crawl towards her lamppost, she would have to jump down onto his back if she did not act now.

My only chance is to get a way, to fight him from a distance, thought Mercury hastily trying to form a plan. Slowly, carefully she turned her head, afraid that the board would creak under her fingers. But her luck was still with her. She swept the street with her eyes, trying to memorize every detail. She'll have to let go carefully, to avoid a tiniest noise. So she'll have to drop positioned as she was, turning around in mid-air was out. She'll have to turn around during her first jump. Mercury tried to assess how much time it will take her to bleed off the inertia of the fall before she could begin to accelerate away, she tried to compare this time with the known tentacle launch delay.

Then she just released the board from her fingers: there was no point in such calculations, it was a do or die situation. She didn't have any other options anyway. And there were less than five meters to the demon from her point of landing.

The fall was painfully slow like she was drowning in molasses. An enemy slowing magic...? No. Her heart beat was as painfully slow. A slow beat, a long, long pause... Another beat... It's my consciousness that sped up. My body activated its emergency survival mode... With fear being the starting factor. She tried to rein in the slowly rising fear, it was still manageable, not threatening her self-control yet but already interfering with her perception, preventing her from analyzing the situation logically. Come on, you're an experienced warrior, you saw things that would make lesser people's hair turn gray!

The attempt to discipline herself failed miserably. This fear was primal, irrational. A fear of a herbivore before its natural predator.

Mercury clenched her teeth trying to ride the wave of fear. To make it work for her, to direct it towards the set goal. Her soles touched, at last, the sidewalk, and she began crouching down, pushing against the unyielding press of gravitation, bleeding off the inertia, trying to put all her strength, all the adrenaline into the muscles of her legs. The time slowed down to a crawl. Bumps began to form at the demon's sides, between the tied up captives. And still the inertia continued to press her, bending lower and lower towards the ground.

She met the eyes of one captive. The girl couldn't see through the fog, couldn't know that the help was so close and yet so far away. She's barely a teenager, Mercury felt nauseated at the revelation. Younger that me when I first took the henshin rod in my hands! These eyes were full of fear, the same fear that clawed at her own soul. But there was also the despair. And the traditional phrase "nobody would marry me now", not funny a bit now and not exaggerated. And the anticipation of a broken life marred with the contempt and shunning, with no friends, with no future...

Mercury felt the holy anger rising in her soul, burning the fear. The unruly emotions tangled in a fierce dogfight, threatening to overwhelm her conscious mind, overwhelm and sweep in away in a blood-red wave. You'll pay for everything, she promised to the demon silently, burning him with her glare. Just you wait until I move to the distance where _I_·will control the flow of battle!

The bumps at the demon's sides broke through with thick, slimy sprouts that began to thin, growing like vines in her direction. She almost growled pushing all her impotent fury into her legs tensed to the limit.

The feeling of the skirt touching her thighs returned Mercury to her senses, making her realize that she was already straightening, for who knows how long. All this time, it wasn't the gravitation she was pushing against. It was inertia.

It's not how I fight, Mercury slapped herself mentally. To rush forward on the wave of emotions, it's for the others. The devil-may-care charge of Uranus, the thundering anger of Jupiter and Iris, the scorching self-confidence of Sol, the overwhelmingly pure love of Moon... That's not my way. _My_·weapon is my mind!

She hastily tried to re-assess the situation. The first thing she noticed was that her jump would carry her more up than backwards. It came out completely different from what she had calculated, completely breaking her plan. 'Well, I'll have to improvise using what I have.' At least, the jump would carry her towards the middle of the street. It was too late to try and correct its direction, she had no chance to turn around either. She concentrated on the incoming tentacles trying to memorize their number and direction. One from the demon's left side, three from the right. And...

And the time rushed forth at its normal speed.

(シーンブレイク)

September 27, 2009

**Comments:**

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**1**


	3. Trial by Scum

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 3,  
Trial by Scum.**

**A fair warning:** if you are eating while reading this, please stop.

(シーンブレイク)

Mercury's body uncoiled like a steel spring catapulting her skyward. Three tentacles whizzed below, an another one whipping in a feint, wrapping around the lamppost and slashing through the air diagonally across the street. It would pass dangerously close, but she didn't have time to worry about that. She was almost at the apex of her arc, an advertising banner passing by, and she had to reach it, to grab, and she twisted squirming desperately, and clutched it almost tearing her fingers, feeling like she pulled a ligament due to the awkward angle...

Mercury rotated around the banner like a gymnast on a bar. Her fingers slipped in the end, but she still transformed her remaining horizontal momentum into vertical one. And only then, tumbling slowly further upward, she noticed that the banner was at the _fifth-story level_!

For a fraction of a second all she felt was amazement at the the incredible height she managed to reach thanks to the explosive mix of adrenaline and willpower. But she was already losing momentum reaching the apex of the new arc. The three tentacles still flew down the street, slowing, trying to tackle their evasive prey with tricky side jerks and wave motions.

Her position was perfect, much better that her initial plan of a desperate dash down the street using the cars as a cover. Had she went wit that plan, she would be caught for sure with the demon rapidly improving his tactics and using more and more tricky techniques.

Alas for him, she was now high above the street, above the billowing fog, while the enemy didn't have any more free tentacles nor the time to reel back the free ones and launch another attack. Mercury, meanwhile, had more than one and a half seconds on her disposal — an incredible luxury in combat.

Concentrating, Mercury summoned her powers. A mighty stream of icy, crystal clear water surged forth obeying her will, gaining momentum, ready to rush into the physical reality.

"Shine..."

She was falling now, noting absently the the demon cussing, hearing her shout, but she had her attention completely occupied by the cocoon of water jets whirling around her. She had to shape it, give it a goal and an order, direct and adjust it, to achieve precisely the outcome she planned.

"..Aqua..."

A whole second passed until she managed to give the malleable spell the form she needed. And almost half a second more to check and recheck everything, to achieve perfection.

"..Illusion!"

Only when she almost reached the ground, already piercing the dispersing layer of fog, Mercury's form exploded with jets of water, innumerable for an outside observer, known precisely by her to the tiniest rivulet.

The snaking jets slammed into the pavement, merging into a single flow that covered the entire street, splashed at the surrounding walls... and froze instantly, turning the street into a perfect skating rink. The three tentacles the demon failed to reel back in time were caught in the frozen fountains spurting up a split second before the freezing occurred. Concerned with the hostages' safety, Mercury handled the demon with an extreme care going to great lengths to avoid harming him. The tentacles, though, were out of the game unless the ice melts... Or the demon proves stronger than he looks, breaking the thin ice struts.

A fraction of a second later, came the reckoning. Putting all her time reserves into the spell, with nothing to spare, Mercury had no time to reorient herself, to land properly. She slammed onto the ice with a jarring force, falling on her back from the fifth-story height.

Stunned, she slid helplessly along the ice. Luckily, it was away from the enemy. Then she hit something soft, like an empty cardboard box. The side of a car frozen solid onto the street was no match to her head, having suffered an impressive dent.

Mercury slumped, relaxing. She lay on her back for many blissful seconds looking into the blue sky while the demon was going through his impressive collection of dirtiest cussing words.

The she exerted an effort, sitting up and assessing the damage. Pulled ligaments, abrasions, bruising, a light concussion, some trauma to her spinal discs... Nothing dangerous or even impeding her battle-worthiness seriously, a few minutes of good rest should restore her completely.

Realizing this, she felt unease. That nagging feeling she couldn't shake off as of lately. When one added all the small things up... She was still a human, right...? She had to be.

The demon meanwhile was cussing up a storm, stranded on the other side of the ice field. He was waving menacingly with his free tentacles, but that didn't impress her. She felt safe for a change. Try crawling across the ice now, you stinky slug, she thought, but held this to herself: such words were unbecoming of a sailor-suited warrior. She frowned trying to concentrate: she was missing something. You can't allow yourself be distracted like that in combat, no matter the shock... That's it! The free tentacles weren't the ones she immobilized, these were still trapped. There were four more free tentacles, and two of the hostages were laying aside. More precisely, one laid and one was sneaking away on all fours, ready to bolt.

Mercury jumped up to her feet forgetting the pain. She did it! She could save them...! She just had to distract the demon not letting him notice the lost prey. And continue to draw his attention to herself!

To herself...? She shivered. When will the others arrive at last? Where's Sailor Moon, Luna claw her?

"Called for backup?"

Mercury never have thought she could feel such a pure, overwhelming relief at the sound of Jupiter's voice.

"Sparkling Wide Pressure!"

Mercury never have thought she could feel such a pure, overwhelming terror at the sound of Jupiter's voice.

"No! Stop! We don't know—"

Only a second it took for the spinning thunderball to cross the fifty meters separating them from the demon.

It hit the enemy right in the muzzle. A flash, a corona of lightning... The demon howling in pain...

"...don't know if he could drain people instantly like the Jadeite's siege youma!" Mercury finished, panicking. She felt anger at her hotheaded friend. "You cannot attack recklessly like that, not knowing all the facts! What if he kills the hostages to heal his wounds?！"

To her horror, the demon rapidly regenerated the scar on his muzzle. Holding her breath, Mercury began scanning the hostages' life energy levels. Only then did she notice three more of them running away shakily. It looked like they caught a fraction of the electric shock. The state of the two hostages remaining trapped... showed no signs of worsening.

"I was wrong," she admitted with relief. "Now we at least know that he cannot drain his victims instantly. But you must not rely on the luck alone—"

Jupiter wasn't listening, launching another thunderball.

The demon swiftly put the hostages in front of him, using them as a shield. Only a tremendous effort of her will allowed Jupiter to halt her projectile, redirecting it into the ground.

"Stop risking!" Mercury screamed at her, now angry for real. "This enemy isn't just strong, he is fast, and he learns quickly! You cannot defeat him charging blindly!"

Jupiter just nodded in agreement, speechless. Her hands were shaking.

Then Venus and Mars arrived.

"Careful!" Mercury warned them right away. "He uses hostages as a shield!"

"What a bastard!" Venus exclaimed indignantly.

"What is the situation?" asked Mars.

"That's what I managed to get," Mercury began informing them, at the same time continuing her attempts to scan the enemy. "It's a tentacle demon, its power level unknown: he is practically impossible to scan. Moves slowly, crawling like a slug - but that's the only good news so far. My fog is useless, he is able to perceive anything by hearing. He is able to shoot his tentacles at a distance of..." She paused, unsure what to say. "Less than the one separating us now. The delay before tentacles launch is about one third of a second. The tentacles travel at very high speeds, it's impossible for us to outrun them. Moreover, the enemy has shown many different sweeping techniques: a wave side motion, a hook - like pull-back, feints using the lamppost as pivots..." She shivered.

"You had a rough time?" Mars asked with compassion.

"Yes..." admitted Mercury. "I don't want to get close to him, ever. I barely managed to avoid just four tentacles, but he now has eleven free out of eighteen.

"A grabby fellow, isn't he?" noted Venus.

The demon decided that he had enough, intoning something the girls didn't understand from that far away. Menacing dark red clouds started forming over the street, billowing between the top stories of the buildings. The Senshi tensed, but all the vile looking clouds did was pouring a hot rain on them.

"Now he has fourteen free," Mercury warned them hearing the clink of breaking ice struts. "He had three trapped in my ice. Don't fall for it, he keeps them hidden in his body!"

The menacing red clouds dispersed as soon as the ice thawed completely. The demon started moving at the girls, crawling across the steaming pavement.

"Well, let's go hand to hand then?" Jupiter asked, licking her lips.

"Wait," Mercury whispered noticing a column of sunlight that flared briefly on the nearby rooftops. A second later, her visor confirmed the teleportation. "Retreat, stall for time! Sol and Iris are closing in!"

"Hmm, do I see shaky knees?" the demon asked mockingly as he kept slowly closing his distance to the unmoving Inners. "Don't you care about these?" He shook the hostages causing plaintive screams. "Well then, I could get to work on them right here and now!" He grinned.

"Why, you..." Mars made a step forward, her fists clenched.

"Well? Did you decide to join us, at last?" The demon released all his tentacles, the appendages surrounding him like a twisting cloud of Gorgon's hair. The Senshi involuntarily backed a step.

"Well...? I'm waiting!" The demon demanded dangling the hostages upside down.

"Venus Love-me Chain!" She couldn't hear the cries for help anymore. Her chain wrapped around almost a half of the tentacles, pulling them tightly together. "Hey-Ho!" She pulled at the chain using all her weight.

"You bitch!" The demon jerked the chain back, also putting all his weight into it.

He weighed several tons.

With a yelp, Venus was sent flying. Luckily, she had the sense to let go of her chain, landing still a fair distance from the enemy. Jumping back to her feet, he clasped her bloodied right hand in the torn glove of her left and jumped back to safety. The chain dispelling, the demon started flexing his bruised tentacles.

The merciless hailstorm of punches came out of the blue. The demon failed to notice their approach. He failed to react before losing his two remaining hostages and four tentacles that hung in mutilated stumps now. He only managed to roar in pain.

Sol and Iris streaked away in a flash, carrying the freed girls to the safety.

"You won't get away with this!" the enemy yelled after them launching a bunch of tentacles that fell hopelessly short.

And then, two shadows fell from the rooftops, materializing in front of the four Inners into Uranus and Neptune landing gracefully.

"World Shaking!"  
"Deep Submerge!"

Two shouts rang as one, two fierce balls of magic streaking towards the enemy. Leaving a golden and emerald trails, the balls merged into one. The joint charge, pure white and overwhelming, reached the enemy... just to reflect off an invisible barrier leaving a brief flash of concentric rings, then crash into the top stories of a nearby building in a shower of glass and concrete shards.

"Pitiful amateurs!" laughed the demon, shortening up. "I've already figured your magic out! You won't even scratch me from now on! My barrier is absolute!"

Uranus and Neptune exchanged glances pulling out their Talismans. Neptune then aimed her mirror at the mutilated building checking if there were people hurt inside. Uranus held her lightsabre at ready, preparing to go in close. Everybody tensed.

"You can prepare all you want!" the demon continued mocking them. "Well? Here I come!" He suddenly jumped, straightening like a spring, right into the Senshi ranks. Nobody expected such a swiftness from the massive thing, so the Senshi barely managed to jump away.

All but Mercury who was too busy scanning. Lifting her eyes from the screen, she stared in horror at the demon ogling her from a hand's length. "Well? Didn't I say I'd catch you?" He grinned, slowly surrounding her with his wriggling tentacles.

A hailstorm of magic fell on the enemy, reflecting impotently from the barrier and just trashing the surrounding buildings.

The tentacles coiled in rings around Mercury, closing with torturous slowness.

"Stellar Jet"

Sol snuck close, releasing a weaker but quick one-handed version of her twisting beam of blinding flame. _Inside_·the barrier. It burned the disgusting appendages away charring the slimy side. Uranus mowed the other side, falling on the demon like a wind and cutting all the tentacles at the base. Burned and cut, the demon shrieked like a butchered pig. Mercury made a shaky step back, letting out a sigh of relief.

"Pitiful amateur!" Sol mocked back. "I've figured your barrier out!" She aimed preparing to unleash the full-strength version of her technique that would end the fight cutting the disgusting thing to two roasted halves.

The demon snorted angrily, then suddenly opened his huge maw wide, lashing out with a long tongue. Mercury was pulled inside before anyone could react. Her computer clattered on the pavement.

"Ddph... D'd you phink... **chomp** tphat woud phtop me?" the demon asked them spitefully, his mouth full. "jupht you know..." He swallowed. "Just you know, most of my tentacles are inside me. There are no distractions there!" He grinned. "Mmm... Squirming so pleasantly..."

"Stellar Jet!" It took for Sol just a fraction of a second to shift her aim at the tail... And stare, stupefied, at her empty hands in smoking gloves.

"Ha. Amateurs." The demon buckled throwing her off his back. "They've figured my barrier out, what a news!"

Uranus tried to slice the bastard open but her lightsabre sputtered out just as she got inside the barrier. Luckily, she expected something like that, so she immediately jumped away, wasting not a second staring at the empty handle in her hands.

"Tiger Domineering!"  
"Thunder Hammer Strike!"

Two ki blasts hit the enemy's opposite sides, not impeded in the slightest by the barrier.

"Hee, hee, that tickles!" commented the demon. He then made a chewing motion, spitting out a torn light-blue rag that fell on the pavement with a wet splat. The Senshi felt cold dread gripping their hearts.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Join the fun!" He opened his maw wide, mocking them.

To everyone's surprise, Iris jumped in there with a mighty roar of "Pervert‼！"

"Akané‼！" Sol screamed in horror, forgetting even to hold their secret identities.

The demon twitched and squirmed, making choked yells and heaving rasps. But Iris kept tearing into his throat like a bulldozer. For a while her legs were still visible flailing in the demon's mouth, then she went deeper and he could, at last, voice his pain. Shrieking like a little girl, he thrashed and rolled around, smashing the walls. The Senshi kept their distance, not risking being crushed under the rabidly thrashing multi-ton hulk.

The thing stilled at last, laying stretched straight at his side. A tense silence followed.

The demon slowly rolled back onto his stomach. "She's verily strong," he admitted. Then coughed, spitting something out, and stared with displeasure at the torn chunks of tentacles he spat out.

The Senshi, on their part, stared in mute horror at the torn blue rag and a ruined boot he spat out.

"But I've had the pleasure of breaking ones even stronger," finished the demon. "Well, who's next?"

The next was Sol. Uranus tried to stop her but almost got a dislocated shoulder for her troubles. Sol dove unerringly right into the demon's gullet, him swallowing her in an instant. The girls rushed the demon, kicking and punching at him desperately — with no more effect than a gang of hamsters trying to beat up a truck tire.

The demon spun throwing the sailor suited warriors away with his tail. Then he stopped, chewing thoughtfully. Everyone apprehended he would spit out a white rag with a red trim and that would be the end of it... But he merely frowned.

"What the..." he mumbled worriedly.

Then he blew up, a sickly green light flashing momentarily through the tears.

The Senshi dove for cover as the hail of bits and pieces hit the walls turning the ruined street into a complete dump. The walls became decorated with flaps of demon hide, torn tentacles and other sticky details.

"Ewww," Venus avowed their mutual feeling as she lifted herself from the ground. Like all others, she was splattered with slime, pus and some unrecognizable bits. "It's disgus... Ack!" She was hit upside the head with a weighty eye.

"How did you like the perfect Lion Roar Blast, you asshole?" Sol gloated, standing up from the crater surrounded with a starburst of slime and squishy chunks. The demon didn't reply, smeared across the street. "That's what you get for..." She suddenly gagged, spitting vigorously while trying to shake off the slime dripping in viscous threads from her hair and costume. "Blarg! Did he refuel in the severs or what?"

"Where are Iris and Mercury?" asked Jupiter emerging from behind a totaled vending machine.

"Mercury is under that car!" Neptune pointed, looking at the street through her mirror. Mars and Venus, with some effort, pushed the ruined car aside, very fearful of what they would find.

They felt a wave of relief seeing Mercury's mostly intact costume. Only the skirt was in fact ripped off, being an applicable accessory and all. Mercury tried to to stand up. She was shaking, her face and arms covered with angry red hives.

"Are you all right?" Mars asked worriedly, despite the obvious fact that she wasn't. Mercury swept the street with her hazy, unfocused eyes. Seeing a trash bin, she hastily stumbled to it, threw the lid off, bent down over it practically putting her head in... then she vomited at last.

In one of the ruined shops, a pile of shelves flew aside revealing Iris, her face red in anger. Of her costume, there was only a torn leotard with a breastplate and the iridescent stone on it. Spitting out a bitten off chunk of a tentacle, she reached into her bosom and pulled out another one, squeezing it so violently that it splattered.

"Where's that pervert?！" she demanded stomping out onto the street like an angry mammoth. "I still owe him a couple..."

"Umm... Sol already tore him to mittens," Venus informed her cautiously. The wrath of Iris was terrifying.

"What's wrong, Akané?" Sol asked her wife, clueless as ever. "It's over, I got... the..." She fell silent in the last possible moment: Iris failed to repay the enemy for the humiliation, which left her with a lot of pent up anger. The most dangerous thing, there was no outlet for it.

The tentacle chunks still lodged under her leotard chose this moment to twitch. She roared, her face reddening, and fumbled trying to reach the damn things through the tear on the side. The next second her patience ran out. She grabbed them right through the leotard and tore away, turning her costume into an armored bikini. Sol backed away in fear, alongside with some of the Senshi.

"Guys! Are you all right?" huffed the winded Usagi. "Oh, mommy, EWWWWW...!"

"Why aren't you transformed?" Mars laid into her, ignoring the way Usagi backed away from her pinching her nose shut. "Do you want to blow our secret identities?"

"I... I can't," replied Usagi, her voice heavy with guilt.

"Not again!" Jupiter threw her hands in the air. "So it's a new enemy...? I don't like the idea of fighting such things every week."

"What do you mean, 'not again'?" Sol asked her while trying unobtrusively to keep away from Iris. Preferably with someone else always between them. "And where did you get the new enemy part?"

"When meatball-head here is ready to achieve a new level, her old magic ceases to work," explained Mars. "She is useless until she re-attunes her spirit to find out how her new powers work."

"Mars is mean to me again!" complained Usagi. "And that happened only a couple times."

"Every time because of a new, stronger enemy," added Jupiter. "How do you think, did that abomination look like a new enemy?"

"I hope not," Venus suddenly looked a bit greener around the gills. "For me, one tentacle demon was more than enough."

"So it was a tentacle demon?" Usagi asked worriedly, glancing at the splattered walls around.

"Did you even listen to your communicator?！" Mars snapped at her. "Coming here untransformed... What if we were still fighting him? Without the boost, you'd have no chance to dodge! He'd swallow you in a second!"

"Swallow?" Usagi inquired nervously.

"Ask Mercury," Mars pointed at the pitiful form of Mercury still hugging the trash bin. "She spent the longest in his stomach!"

Usagi gasped rushing to the bent down Mercury. Staggering away for just a second, she crouched down beside her friend dry heaving over the trash bin.

"Ami-chan, are you...?" she asked quietly. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there." She placed her hand on her friend's sticky shoulder.

Mercury raised her head, her eyes focusing for the first time after the battle. "I... hic... I'm all right, Usagi-chan." She smiled weakly. "He... He hadn't have time to do anything to me, he just frightened me badly."

Usagi's face lit with a genuine smile. "I'm so glad..." She let out a breath of relief. "Wait a moment! Why are you all red and pimpled? Were you burnt?"

"It's all right," Mercury reassured her. "Just a minor neural effect, it will pass soon." She stood up. "Step aside for a moment, please. I will..." She bent down, heaving again. "I will clean it up." She went across the street. "Shine Aqua Illusion!"

The powerful jets rushed in all directions hitting the splattered Senshi who barely managed to keep their footing. "Ahh, that's better!" said the thoroughly soaked but squeaky clean Mercury.

"Thanks," grumbled Jupiter whose ponytail lost its tie, the wet locks covering her face.

"Er..." injected the completely dry Usagi holding her hand — the one she touched Mercury with — aloft, like a dead rat. "Anyone got a napkin?"

"Here," Neptune handed her a napkin she produced from somewhere.

"Hey, where are Saturn and Pluto?" asked Sol still trying to keep unobtrusively behind the other girls' backs to avoid Iris circling like a bird of prey.

"Saturn..." Uranus felt awkward talking about this. "We insisted that she stays home. After we heard _what_·we'd have to fight..." Left unsaid was the fact that it brought a discord into their family, having now to mend things somehow.

"Pluto, on her part, simply doesn't respond," added Neptune helping Usagi to clean her hand.

"How typical of her!" Iris snorted like an angry bull. "Always scheming, keeping us in the dark, planning something..."

Sol thought her wife was utterly wrong but she wisely decided to keep her mouth shut.

"Hey!" Venus attracted everyone's attention. "Do you hear that? Feels like someone's crying." She went down the street, then looked under one of the rare surviving cars. "How did _he_·get here...?"

Others quickly gathered around her, four of them effortlessly moving the car aside revealing a sob-wracked carcass of Happousai.

"Why, you..." Iris grabbed the old pervert intent on pummeling him. But he looked so pitiful, so listless, that her fist lowered against her will. "What were you scheming here, huh?"

Happousai just kept sobbing and babbling inarticulately, his eyes rolled up.

"Enough, leave him be," Sol put a hand on her shoulder. "He was probably swallowed by the demon too."

"You think?" Iris looked at the carcass in her hands with a squeamish pity. "All right, let's leave him alone." She carefully put Happousai back into the trash bin closing the lid. Muffled sobs, hiccups and cries of "don't", "pretty ladies" and "abomination" could be heard from inside.

"Has anyone seen my computer?" asked Mercury.

Everyone started looking around digging in the corners with disgust: the street was still full of demon chunks, now heaped along the walls, pushed there by Mercury's impromptu cleansing. Neptune took out her mirror again.

"It's there, at the bottom," she pointed at the biggest grimy heap around. "And it seems that... A paparazzi!"

The Senshi instantly surrounded Usagi hiding her from unwanted eyes. Iris, finding at last someone to vent her frustrations on, stomped angrily towards the overly bold reporter: "Scram, now!"

"Stop, you idiot!" Sol yelled after her.

The paparazzi flashed his camera a couple times, then ran away as if his tail was on fire.

"Baka-baka-baka-baaaaaka," groaned Sol, facepalming.

"What's wrong?"

"Look at yourself!" Sol chewed it over for her. "Then remember just who we were fighting... Then imagine what the tabloids would write now, with your photo on the front cover to boot!"

Iris glanced down, fearful. Of her costume, there were left: the breastplate with a torn bow, the ragged-edged barely-there remains of the bottom of her leotard and one boot. Well, she also had a tiara on her head.

"See?" Sol summed it up grimly.

Iris went green. Then she went purple. Roaring in impotent fury, she slammed her fist into a nearby lamppost pulverizing the concrete. The lamppost fell with a groan, squashing a couple cars.

The other Senshi, meanwhile, were digging through the revolting heap trying to use broken boards and other long tools.

"Here is it!" Mercury plucked her stinky, dripping computer out with a squish, holding it aloft like a week-old carrion. "Yuck!"

The computer emitted a beep muted with all the grime and pus.

"What is it?" Mercury frowned, wiping at the screen ineffectually and trying to read it through the smeared grime. "Attention, everyone!" She spent several priceless seconds fighting the sticking keys. "Usagi, move, NOW‼！"

"What's wrong?" Usagi asked, alarmed.

What happened the next moment looked much like an explosion played backwards. The demon chunks from all across the street flew towards one point, instantly forming a huge misshapen lump.

Right where Usagi stood just a second ago.

(シーンブレイク)

October 24, 2009  
Translated October 28, 2009  
Last edited April 01, 2012

**Comments:**

###

**1**

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— Climhazard  
— N. Kuta  
— Orphus users (1 bugs so far)


	4. Mortal Battle

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 4,  
Mortal Battle.**

"Usagi-chan!" Their simultaneous shout shook the air. Fire and lightning fell upon the slimy cocoon tearing into it, splashing it apart...

"Hey, hey, careful," the face forming on the cocoon side warned them. "Aren't we afraid to hurt our friend? To kill her accidentally?

The Senshi froze. Sol started lowering her hands that almost released an all-incinerating stream of plasma. The formless slimy lump stretched, forming the too familiar slug-like figure. The Senshi rushed at it, going hand-to-hand, but were forced to jump back avoiding tentacles that shoot from the sides of the demon's hulk.

"Ahh, alive and kicking again," the demon made a point out of stretching languidly. He was without a scratch, despite losing at least half his mass. "As I said before, squirming so pleasa..."

He shut up, a rose plunged deeply into his eye.

The demon growled, hurting his tentacle on the thorns but tearing the rose out together with his eye. He grew a new one instantly, then turned to Tuxedo Kamen who landed jumping down from the roofs: "That didn't even hurt! You could shoot a dozed of these, I won't even..."

The cane suddenly lengthened gouging the same eye out. The demon rolled onto his side, disoriented for a moment, and the Senshi fell onto him like locusts, kicking and punching him, tearing at his tentacles. Iris found, at last, the outlet for her frustrations: with a satisfied growl she pruned the enemy's left side. He made a mistake by trying to wrap her with as many tentacles as possible, so she called forth her strength and tore them all. Tuxedo Kamen kept hitting the enemy in the muzzle with his cane methodically and mercilessly, stopping any attempts to regenerate the eyes. Sol pushed at his lips with her hands and feet, trying to repeat her successful move from before.

The demon began to twist madly, like a stung caterpillar, coiling and uncoiling. Everyone except the Saotome-Tendou couple were thrown away, hitting the walls. Sol managed to hold on the muzzle somehow. Iris stuck embedded firmly in the asphalt, a halo of cracks surrounding her.

"Did you..." the demon began with hatred in his voice. He was immediately interrupted by Sol's victorious shoot. She dove into his maw. Alas, the success was short-lived: the demon spat her out aiming precisely enough that she hit a lamppost with her head. The concrete lamppost cracked. Sol slid down it feigning being dazed while watching for an opening.

"Did you think that's all?" asked the demon. There was no gloating in his voice anymore, just a vile, primal hatred. "Did you think I could be defeated?" A full set of new, intact tentacles shot out of his sides. "Didn't it occurred to you that I was just giving myself a handicap? That I was just bored of easy victories?"

His rant was interrupted by a dozen of roses plunging into his vulnerable spots. He growled, ripping his pierced eyes and tentacles off. He grew a new ones, then he turned to Tuxedo Kamen who was breathing heavily, down on his knee. "You are her man, aren't you?" growled he demon. "Look then, look and feel impotent!" He lifted up on his tail, performing something like a belly-dance. "Knowing that I..."

Another dozen of roses plunged into his vulnerable spots. The demon ripped out these as well. "You know," his voice practically resonated with hatred. "I can make her to like it! I have so many drugs at my disposal you couldn't even imagine! And then she will break! Like this!" He lifted a piece of board, snapping it like a twig. "I'll ruin her! Make her wallow is self-disgust!" He sputtered, choking with hatred. "And you, oh so gallant one, will be watching it‼" He tore another dozen roses out, casually regenerating the wounds. Tuxedo Kamen looked haggard, drained, barely holding up. "And then! I will give her back to you! I'll enjoy watching you! Fall apart, unable to cope! Watching you... Nnnrgh..."

The shining discus bursting out between his eyes was as unexpected for him as it was for the sailor-suited warriors.

"Wha..." the demon gurgled weakly.

"She have transformed! Fire!" shouted Sol. A hailstorm of magic fell upon the demon... bouncing off the damned barrier and raining on the surrounding buildings, further turning the street into a war zone.

"Ha! Did you think..." the demon tried to gloat but was interrupted by the next dozen of roses that simply passed through the barrier unhindered, and the returning tiara that made the barrier burst with the sound of a colossal gong. The tiara entered the demon's side, exiting again, this time out of his tail. He howled, spinning... and was burned through with a meter-wide blinding beam of searing plasma. Sol smirked nastily, moving the beam emanating from her outstretched hands left and right. The surrounding Senshi cringed, trying in vain to shield themselves with their mostly bare arms from the scorching heat. Sol killed her beam. The demon, mutilated, cut almost in half was shrieking in pain, sizzling, roasting on the burning, melting asphalt. A singed Sailor Moon jumped out of the huge hole in his body and instantly performed a "Hot-hot-hot!" dance on the red-hot pavement. Hastily jumping away to the cooler ground, she caught the returning tiara and send it back at the enemy in a short arc, flaying the mutilated hulk further. Then again and again, cutting at the demon like a butcher.

"I cannot be defeated!" shrieked the demon as he raised his barrier and trying to regenerate faster than they tore him apart. The barrier burst instantly, hit with the cycling tiara. Elemental tempest fell upon the demon: thunder-balls, arrows of fire, searing beams, the Outers' joint charge... there were chunks flying off of him left and right, the slug-like body ridden with holes it couldn't regenerate fast enough.

"That's it!" roared the demon rapidly turning into a Swiss cheese. "Even if it would cost me a century quota, I WILL crush you! _Ahssat Ahs-three, requesting control access Khachast Eet Uhsuht!_

"Access granted." The Senshi started, glancing around for the source of the melodic voice seemingly coming from everywhere at once. "Level Ahs-three Eet Uhsuht, cutoff seventy Petajoules. Warning! You have exceeded your quota. Cancel all operations, otherwise your account will be suspended for the next century. You have fifty seconds to cancel."

"I don't care!" the demon screeched in reply. "I'll live without the access somehow! But now..." He cast a glance at the Senshi, making many of them shudder: there was so much primal hatred in his eyes. "Now you are mine!"

"What was that? What did he do?" Sol asked, alarmed, as she aimed to finish the enemy off, collateral damage be damned.

"He asked for support from a some sort of system," Mercury replied tensely, trying to locate the unknown threat. "Seventy Petajoules are a bad news. With so much power he can burn entire Tokyo to cinders, even if he has only fifty seconds..." She fell silent, staring dumbly at the blank screen of her suddenly dead computer.

"Is it me, or does the ground tremble?" Venus asked, nervous.

The demon started laughing.

Huge crystalline spires rose around them in a circle tearing through buildings, surrounding the sailor-suited warriors together with a whole city block. Angular, curved slightly inward like claws, half of their facets mirror, other half charcoal black.

The demon started laughing louder.

"Stellar Jet!" Sol didn't waste time, a blinding sphere started gathering between her outstretched palms, the seed of a future plasma storm.

It sputtered out before even forming.

The others tried to call their magic forth, with the same result. Then came the moment of nauseating horror when their transformations reversed at once, leaving the girls in their birthday suits for a whole second. Luckily, their casual clothing returned — but that second felt like eternity.

"Usako‼！" Mamoru screamed in anguish seeing that Usagi failed to retreat to a safe distance.

The demon was shaking in a gloating laughter as he wrapped her with his tentacles. "Well? Playtime is over, isn't it? Now you are all mine!" He brought the kicking Usagi close to his face. "Ooh, aren't we feeling helpless without our magic?"

A ki blast hit his tentacles, unable to tear these apart but strong enough to shake Usagi loose. She plopped down and displayed a champion ability to backpedal on all fours.

"Did you forget?" Ranma inquired the demon. "You only have fifty seconds, you freak."

"Ah, thank you for reminding me!" he grinned. "Don't worry, I'll take you away to my place where your magic is useless! _Ahs-three Eet Uhsuht, return portal!_·I'll take all of you!" His tentacles shot in all directions, causing a chorus of outcries when all girls except the nimble Ranma were caught. Mamoru rushed the enemy with a piece of iron rebar. "No, I don't need you." The demon threw him aside. Mamoru hit a wall and didn't rise again.

"Mamo-chan!" Usagi cried tugging desperately at the tentacle holding her.

The crystalline spires glinted once, a dark vortex of a portal starting to form nearby.

"Well," the demon summed up with a sadistic smile, "it's time for you to see my place, the place where you will be completely powerless." He started crawling towards the portal, leisurely. "Just imagine it: begging me for death but being denied—"

"Tiger Domineering!"

"Ah, yes..." He turned to her, not even fazed by the ki blast that hit his tail. "I still have a small unfinished business, it seems. Never mind, I still have time."

Ranma rushed him, dodging all the opposing tentacles with inhuman agility. Dodging along the slimy side, she darted left, then right... The demon swore finding his tentacles tangled. While he was busy untangling these, Ranma freed Makoto and Haruka with a couple of well aimed palm chops. The girls tried to join the battle, but Ranma all but kicked them away: "No! Run! Don't let him catch you!"

This moment of inattention cost her: the demon caught Ranma wrapping her with four tentacles at once. She grunted: he seriously tried to crush her.

"What sort of tough vermin are you?" the demon spat when all his attempts failed. He raised Ranma high, then slammed her face first into the pavement, causing cries of anguish from the trapped girls. "Well, how it feels... Are you made of iron or what?！" he went livid seeing her barely bruised face, asphalt crumbles falling off. There was a dent in the pavement. "Why you, little shit!" He started slamming her into the pavement time and again. "Will you just die‼！"

"Ranko-chan!" Makoto and Haruka cried out, rushing to help her.

"Stop... Stay back..." Ranma hissed out, but it was too late. Both the girls were caught without causing the enemy any harm.

"So you're tough, eh?" The demon was losing his patience. "Let's see how you'd fare when l rip you open!" He shifted his grip, aiming to slam Ranma abdomen first onto a sharp chunk of concrete. "Die, little bitch!"

Stunned momentarily by a lamppost impacting the back of his head, he dropped Ranma who hastily crawled away.

"Would you stop popping out of woodworks‼！" the demon screeched, spit flying everywhere. Akané flew back, thrown away by a tail strike. "That's it, enough crushing! I'll be burning you! Alive‼！" His voice caught, overwhelmed by hatred. "_Ahs-three Eet Uhsuht, Napalm strike at this bitch!_" He pointed at Akané who was lifting herself from the ground.

"Nooo!" the bruised Ranma cried up in horror trying to get up. "Akané‼！"

"Invalid target zone," replied the melodic disembodied voice. "Female dog was not found in the set coordinate range. Please formulate your request correctly."

"Dumb machine‼" the demon yelled, sputtering. "_Ahs-three Eet Uhsuht! Napalm strike! Target person named Akané!_"

"Ubiquitous target zone." The disembodied voice didn't give up. "Too many persons named Akané. Your access level doesn't allow targeting all of them."

"You bloody mechanical moron‼！" roared the demon. "Well, fine! _Ahs-three Eet Uhsuht! Napalm strike! Target all persons named Akané in a hundred-meter radius from me! Target zone is a sphere, diameter three meters, linked to the center of mass of each person!"_·

"Request accepted," confirmed the disembodied voice. A yellowish cloud started forming around Akané. She dashed away in terror. "Please wait, performing final adjusting of the target zone."

"Burn now!" the demon's eyes smoldered with hatred. The yellowish cloud followed Akané like it was glued to her, the suffocating chemical aerosol forming around her right from the thin air.

"Akaneeee‼！" Ranma's voice caught.

"Akane-chan‼！" chorused the trapped girls trying to break free.

Akané cringed curling into a ball in anticipation of a horrible death...

"Fifty seconds passed," the disembodied voice stated calmly. "Your account is suspended."

"What?‼" hollered the demon. This time there was a genuine terror in his voice. "Noooo! You little bitches...! Stalled me...! Don't you think you won! I'll..." The tentacles started disintegrating, letting the girls go. The demon's bulk began to melt. "Nooo! It can'blt... blbe..." He melted completely, turning into an expanding pool of stinky slime making the girls step back widening their circle.

"Mamo-chan!" Usagi rushed to the side of her fallen loved one. Ami followed her suit.

"Ack!" Akané ran out of the pool of unlit napalm. She stank of gasoline and chemicals. "Somebody, wash this stuff offa me!" She then saw torn wires sparkling above, let out a shriek of terror and dashed away in a blind panic. Ranma ran after her.

"Look, there's somebody there!" noted Michiru. There, in the middle of the slime pool, lay a naked body curled in a fetal position. Haruka plodded up to it, getting full boots of slime for her efforts. She didn't help the stranger, though, crunching her nose up in disgust instead. The body sat up turning to be a short, scrawny and ugly man.

"Another swallowed victim?" asked Minako. "Is he all right?"

"Don't hurt me!" the man begged, cringing in terror. It was like he expected them to start flaying him alive.

"A swallowed victim? As if!" Haruka replied with a vengeful grin. "Down, bastard!" She kicked him down, then put her boot on his back, to prevent escape. "It's himself, in person!"

"In person?" Minako was dumbfounded. "What do you mean?" Her exclamation made Rei and Makoto lift their heads from where they were hovering over the unmoving Mamoru, Usagi wailing over him and Ami trying to perform first aid.

"She means," Michiru explained while off-handedly giving Haruka a length of rope, "That he is our demon. Or, should I say, a _human_," She filled the word with disgust, "who chose the form of a tentacle demon. Losing his powers he reverted into what he is."

"You mean, the dark energy turned this man turned into that demon?" asked Minako.

"Should we try to purify him?" Rei added focusing on the prisoner to feel if there was evil in him.

"I respect you guys," Haruka snorted while tying the prisoner's hands behind his back, "but your naivety is really something."

"Such _abomination_," explained Michiru, "is too human. Demons are unable to fall so low, they don't have enough imagination." She poked the squirming man with the point of her shoe. "Compared to this, demons are pure in their undiluted craving for destruction."

"You mean he chose that form himself?" Makoto said in stunned disgust. "On his own will?"

"He..." Rei confirmed, her tone crestfallen, "he did. There is no any dark energy in him, no possession... How could one even think of doing that?"

"Now you see," Michiru said sadly. "Our world is a very dark and grim place. Only the people like Usagi—"

"Mamo-chan!" Usagi cried out when he tried to sit up but immediately slid back with a pained groan.

"Don't move!" Ami warned him hastily. "You have a broken shoulder, maybe a broken shoulder blade too!"

"Mamo-chan..." Usagi sniffed.

"We must bring him to hospital," said Ami. "I don't see anything life threatening, but... Without the Mercury computer I'm blind. I shouldn't have got used to rely on it in everything..."

"What should we do with this scum?" asked Makoto.

"Give him to the police," Haruka grinned nastily as she jerked the prisoner up into standing position. "He's a human, so let him carry his punishment like one."

"We should call 119..." Ami found, at last, a spare moment to look around for real. She gasped. "Did we ruin the street so much...?" A war zone stretched around them, the street hopelessly blocked with smashed cars, fallen lampposts and collapsed building fronts. "Ambulance couldn't get here, we have to carry him somewhat. Let's see if there is something to build a stretcher..."

"Everyone's all right there?" called an unfamiliar man's voice from behind. Turning around, the girls saw two policemen who took cover among the ruins. "Please leave the hazardous area. Until the Sailor Senshi finish cleaning it up, it's—"

"They've finished it already!" Minako announced loudly, with a nervous laugh. "The Senshi, who aren't us of course, have already defeated the demon. Now they only have to—"

"She tried to say," Michiru interrupted her, "That the Senshi met an unexpected setback in the form of some kind of field negating their magic, and thus they had to... retreat having to keep their secret identities."

"Still, it's no place—" began the younger policeman who obviously didn't get it.

"I see," his older partner interrupted him. "Then the suspect here..." He made a pointed pause.

"Is the true form of the demon who had been attacking young girls in this block," finished Michiru. "Whatever world did he came from, I'm sure the articles for sexually assaulting minors are fully applicable to him."

"All right, time to get this crapsack off our necks." Haruka said dragging the prisoner none too gently towards the policemen.

"You... you won't kill me?" he asked, stopping in his tracks as the sudden realization hit him.

"That would be too merciful," Haruka pushed him forward. "No, you'll be rotting in prison for many, many long years.

"We have one wounded here, with fractures," Ami reminded them. "Could you please help us evacuate him?"

I'll call the medical team," the elder policeman said. "They are waiting on ready right beyond the cordon. Now, when danger is over, they'd be here in a minute, on foot..." He cast a worried glance at the claw-like spires still surrounding them, then at the black, slightly wavering ellipse of the portal. "Are you sure the danger is over?"

"I... I can't guarantee it," Ami said feeling helpless as ever. "But we know that it's a some sort of machine the enemy used but has been denied access to it for the next hundred years. I think... I think we could assume, safely enough, that it would remain passive while not receiving any further commands."

"Anyway, the Senshi wouldn't be of much help until the anti-magic zone is dispelled," Michiru noted eying critically a small hand mirror with the symbol of Neptune on its back. The talisman was dull, lifeless. Even the reflection was blurry.

The next moment Ranma landed next to them holding over his head a stretcher borrowed from an ambulance car. "How's our heroic martyr?" While he didn't have a very high opinion on Mamoru, he respected the man's determination to shield his loved one with his untrained carcass without even a hint of hesitation.

"He holds on, but his shoulder is broken," Ami briefly informed him. "Let's put him on the stretcher, carefully..."

"Let me help," Akané landed next to them, breathing heavily. Wet and disheveled, the unnatural lemon smell coming off her was overpowering. Ranma obviously didn't spare a dish washing liquid on her.

Guided by Ami, they carefully moved Mamoru onto the stretcher. Despite all their efforts he groaned through clenched teeth once. Usagi miled around chewing her lip and fidgeting.

"Hey!" Minako attracted their attention, her tone nervous. "It's me or the portal is becoming bigger?"

"Ah, so you noticed at last my farewell gift!" the former demon shouted out with insane glee. "Did you think you won?" He made an unexpectedly sharp motion breaking free of the policemen hands and turning to face the girls. "What a surprise, you don't have much time left!" The officers grabbed him, pulling his hands behind his back, but he still fought to straighten up glaring at the girls with eyes that made one's hair stand on its ends. "This thingie will destabilize soon! Blam! and there's a black hole..." He started frothing. "AND THERE'S ONE PLANET LESS‼！"

"Shut up." The elder policeman stunned him hitting at the bastard's neck. "Umm... Not-Senshi-san, could you do anything...? I have a wife and a son on this planet... He just entered middle school..."

"I..." Ami tried hopelessly to revive her dead computer. "I can't... I have no data... This portal breaks all the laws I know of... I'm sorry..." She never felt so helpless.

"Tell us how to close the portal, now!" Ranma stormed up to him, slugging him in the mug a couple times to attract his attention. "I hate to beat up on weaklings, but for every living man and woman... For my mother, my wife, I'm ready to tear you apart. Got that?" His voice was so full of menace it made many of them shudder. For better effect, Ranma intertwined his fingers with a piece of iron rebar and _squeezed_. The iron rod made a pitiful squeak turning into a pretzel.

The bastard just smiled with his broken lips: "You're out of luck. Only Ahs could close it. You just have to issue a command." His face split with an insane grin. "Of course you have to have the proper access rights."

"Then issue that command!" Ranma glared at him fiercely.

"As you wish, as you wish," the bastard said in mock terror. "_Ahs-three Eet Uhsuht, close the return portal._"

"Access denied," replied the disembodied melodic voice. "Your account is suspended, wait three billion one hundred fifty five million seven hundred fifty nine thousand five hundred three seconds and try again."

"Close the portal, you bastard!" Ranma yelled swiveling his head trying to pinpoint the source of the voice. "Don't you care that six billion people are going to die?！"

"Bastard is not a valid subsystem name," the voice replied with the same infuriating calmness . "Your command close the portal is ubiquitous, please rephrase. Your second command is unparseable."

"Nice try," the former demon said, grinning, there was fear in his eyes, mixed with some insane glee. "But Ahs is a duuumb machine. And you don't have the access rights." His features suddenly reflected confusion. "But why the hell did it answer you, then? The system should just ignore anyone except the ones marked by it..."

"Hey, you!" Ranma yelled toward the sky. "I don't care if you are dumb! Close the portal! This one I'm pointing at!"

"Please say your code phrase to validate your access rights," replied the disembodied voice.

"Ahs-three Eet Uhsuht!" yelled Ranma.

"Rejected," the voice replied. "This phrase is not your code phrase or your articulation is not clear enough."

"Ahs-three Eet Uhsuht, you bastard!" roared Ranma.

"Rejected. This phrase is not your code phrase or your articulation is not clear enough."

Ranma turned his fierce glare at the prisoner who just cackled: "Why are you looking at me? The code phrase is unique for each Ahs Lord, it's derived from your DNA when you join the ranks—"

"Then tell me _how_!" Ranma gripped his shoulders looking him right in the eyes and emitting killing intent so powerful that even the girls ten meters away made an involuntary step 4

"I don't know!" the former demon shrieked breaking like twig under the sheer pressure of Ranma's killing intent. "Please don't hurt me, Master...! I honestly know nothing! If you weren't Ahs Lord already, the system wouldn't even dignify you with reply! You had probably become one!"

"How?" Ranma didn't let the pressure down. "And where is my code phrase then?"

"I don't know!" the prisoner shrieked hysterically. "I don't understand what is going on! This shouldn't be happening! Don't kill me please! We will all die soon anyway!" He started laughing hysterically, shaking and slobbering. Ranma threw him away in disgust, turning back to the portal.

The growth of the black ellipse was noticeable now, a small wind sucking in paper and other light trash.

Ami suddenly got an idea: "Try asking the system for your code phrase!"

"Hey, you!" Ranma called in no particular direction. "Tell me my code phrase!"

"Your code phrase is Ahs-seven Tkhach'shahs Eet Suht," replied the disembodied voice.

"Ahs-seven Thacha... Tkhachchas Eet Suht!" yelled Ranma trying to outcry the rising wind. "Close this portal!"

Everyone stilled holding their breath. Please, please let this works!

"Access denied," replied the disembodied voice quenching all hopes. "Your access level is seven but the command to open the designated portal was issued by user with access level three. You should be the user who issued the command to open the designated portal or have access level two or higher."

"That's really the end," declared the former demon, an insane smile on his lips. The portal was growing faster and faster, the hurricane wind roared sucking in rocks, boards and other weighty trash. "We'll all die!" the instigator of this all yelled merrily, managing to rise up in spite of his hands tied behind his back. "The black hole will swallow us all!" He suddenly lost his balance and was swept by the rising wind. One moment he was here, the next moment he was gone, swallowed by the yawning black void.

The girls and the policemen were backing away, fighting the resilient wind, dragging the stretcher with Mamoru. The black ellipse touched the sides of the street making the buildings collapse into it in avalanches of concrete. The street was becoming wider by every moment. Ruined cars were sucked in like dry leaves, disappearing in the bottomless blackness.

"It's a black hole, right?" Usagi yelled trying to outcry the roaring wind. "Like that time on the bridge when Rubeus awakened that wand?" note 2

"No!" Ami screamed at her, the realization of what their leader was thinking froze the blood in her veins. "Don't! We don't know—!"

But it was too late. Usagi stood straight looking into the rapidly growing portal. The wind flapped her clothing, her ponytails stretching towards the black abyss like rippling streamers.

"I'm Sailor Moon," she said such a simple, matter-of-fact tone that the four Inners froze forgetting to breathe. "I must protect this world."

And there was light between her hands clenched against her chest.

"No! Usagi-chan!"  
"Stop!"  
"Usagi, don't...!"

Their simultaneous shout didn't stop her. Usagi made a step towards the abyss.

Ranma growled in impotent fury gripping his dead, unresponsive henshin rod.

"Usako‼！" Mamoru croaked in anguish trying to get up forgetting about his broken shoulder.

Usagi flared with brilliant light, then fell into the roaring abyss like a shooting star. A fraction of a second later she was gone. For a moment, nothing happened to the portal. Then it shrank tenfold. Then it expanded even more sucking nearby buildings up — the girls, caught unawares, barely held their ground. Then it shrank again...

"Alarm!" the disembodied voice noted calmly. "Destabilization of the carrier continuum! The portal will be forcibly terminated!"

"That's a good thing, right?" Minako asked Ami, her voice anxious.

"No!" the other girl groaned in despair, her clenched fists whitening. "If it collapses while she—"

The portal erupted with rays of silver light and quaked pulsing erratically... Then there was a mighty thunderclap as it shrank into a blinding point making everyone present shield their eyes. The shockwave slapped them like a whip, then a complete, ringing silence descended upon them. A dust cloud was slowly settling down where the portal once was. The silence was only disturbed by debris occasionally shifting in the ruins.

"No..." Mamoru moaned falling back to the stretcher. A merciful unconsciousness claimed him.

Everyone else looked on, stunned, crushed, disbelieving.

The policemen bowed their heads down in silence.

The dust cloud finally dissipated revealing a flat, cleanly swept crater. There was a vague, limping shape int its middle becoming more and more solid.

Hope and relief ignited ignited the sailor suited warriors' souls with their blinding power.

"Hey guys‼ Everybody's all right?‼" Usagi yelled as she cheerfully limped towards them.

They rushed towards her surrounding her and trying to talk at once, unable to hold their joy back.

"Your are bleeding from your ears!" Ami gasped noticing the state she was in.

Truly to her word, there were thin rivulets of blood seeping out of Usagi's ears and nose. Not to mention her hair, which was totally ruined. The right odango and ponytail were simply gone, the short ruffled hair surrounding a sizable bald spot.

"Huh?‼" Usagi bellowed merrily. "Why so quiet, I can't hear you‼" She felt that something was wrong and tried to palpate her head where her hand found the sticky smear... "Ack‼ My ears are bleeding‼" She began frantically digging her pockets in search for a napkin. "I have to wipe it off or my blouse is done for‼"

With a patient sigh, Makoto tugged at Usagi's sleeve to bring her attention to the fact that half of it was missing. The ruined sleeve, as well as the big hole at the right side of her waist had very clean, if slightly wavy, edges like the blouse was cut with something extremely sharp.

"There's no helping this blouse," stated Minako. "Hey," she turned to Ami. "Why are you shaking?"

Ami took a shuddering breath forcing her clenched fists open. She was visibly shaking. "It was a random folding of space. The volumes were split unpredictably. She could have been cut in half. Or just her face could have been sent hell knows where. Or a part of her internal organs..." She took another shuddering breath gritting her teeth in the effort to force herself to relax.

Minako looked back at Usagi's ruined clothing and hair cut flush against her head. She went green.

Luckily, Usagi couldn't hear any of that. She remembered at last about her loved one and rushed towards him wailing so loudly their comrades' ears ringed.

They followed her as one. And even Ranma failed to notice the returned paparazzi. Fearless like kamikaze and stealthy like ninja, he hid behind nearby corner. An unscrupulous carrion feeder, he filmed almost everything. Now he was rubbing his grabby little hands anticipating the sensation to come...

A new trial was coming, they would have to withstand the second of the maho-shojou's worst nightmares, one probably more terrifying than even a tentacle demon.

**Comments:**

###

**1**  
Killing intent - "satsuki" (殺気). In theory, it is emitted by anyone who attacks someone. The vast majority of martial artists possess a sixth sense allowing them to detect this kind of ki and thus react to a sneak attack. It's how Akané intercepted Kodachi's attack from behind with a shinai. Her thought baloon even states literally "A killer intent!" which was muddled in the English manga translation into somethink like "An attack!" or so, I don't remember exactly

Powerful martial artists can project their killing intent at will to daze or outright paralyze weaker opponents.

**2**  
Usagi as always got it wrong. That portal (the second R season of anime, I'm too lazy to remember the exact episode) wasn't a black hole. Ami just noted that it sucks everything in _like_·a black hole.

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— Climhazard  
— N. Kuta  
— Tuuttiki  
— Orphus users (1 bugs so far)


	5. Calm Before the Storm

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 5,  
Calm Before the Shitstorm**

In the light of knowledge that Tsukino family is based on the Takeuchi Naoko's real family, including the personal names — yes, she was _that careless_ — I deemed using the canonic names amoral, so I changed these.

(シーンブレイク)

The ring of crystalline claw spires shook as it started retracting back into the ground. Then suddenly all spires at once collapsed into thin lines dispersing in glittering silvery particles quickly fading to nothingness.

Only the faraway sirens and Usagi's sniffing were disturbing the peaceful silence.

"Not-Senshi-san," said the elder policeman addressing them politely. "The reinforcements will be here soon, as well as the civil defense forces and..."

"If you ask me, I saw nothing," sincerely proclaimed the younger one who've already caught up to events.

"Let's go," Haruka broke the relieved silence. "We cannot stay here."

"Right," agreed Ami replacing her lifeless, pus-dripping computer in her bag. "I have to clean it quickly..." She seemed somewhat dazed which caused a worried glance from Makoto.

"We'll take care of him," said Ranma. He and Akané lifted the stretcher with the unconscious Mamoru but Usagi refused to leave her beloved's side: "He fell unconscious when the portal was still here, right?"

Ranma and Akané exchanged glances. To think of it, the last thing the poor savior probably remembered was his soul-mate disappearing in the black abyss. Both shivered. They wouldn't want to be him when he comes to if she's not there...

"I must be with him until he awakens," Usagi said with finality in her voice. No one even thought of arguing against that, not to count the fact she was completely deaf now. The couple of martial artists carried the stretcher away keeping a slow pace as Usagi was noticeably limping now. The heat of battle long gone, she felt every one of her numerous bruises. The policemen went to her sides supporting her and helping her through obstacles of the demolished street.

The rest of the girls followed them in an uneven crowd.

"Where should we go now?" Minako avowed the rhetorical question, unsure what to do. Then the stench from the slime that dried up on her clothes caught up, at last, with her smell receptors. "Yeeeech! Yuck. Wait a minute, I can't go home like this! Guys, could anyone lend me something to wear?"

They all now felt the stench coming off of them.

"I'm afraid I cannot help," Ami apologized covering her nose with a napkin. "The security guards simply wouldn't allow you inside the condo."

"I don't have anything right size." Makoto shrugged. "Besides, I don't have that many spare outfits." She sighed pulling at the flap of her stinky jacket. "And wow I have to throw this one out too."

"Let's go to my place," suggested Rei. "I have an idea."

(シーンブレイク)

Greedily rubbing his grabby little hands the paparazzi sped for the studio. Later he'll receive a thorough beating from the admirers of the sailor-suited warriors. He will spend a lot of time bedridden with broken extremities. But that will happen later. Post-factum.

(シーンブレイク)

"No, no and no," Usagi rebuffed the nurse with all the persuasiveness of a headstrong hamster. "I won't leave him until he wakes up. I'll sit here two days straight if needed. And don't try to talk me out of this, I'm deaf anyway, my ears were blown out.

A youngish, serious looking doctor entered the room: "Well, how is our injured? Ready for her pre-assessment?"

The nurse just shrugged helplessly: "I can't even make her move. She's stuck at his bed like she's glued there."

The doctor rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Considering the obvious signs of hemorrhaging from her ears...

"She admitted it herself that she is deaf" the nurse agreed. "Completely deaf at that. And still she refuses to move."

The doctor frowned. "This girl is obviously in shock, otherwise she wouldn't hold herself so calmly. The pain from the ruptured eardrums alone..." He fell silent for a moment, deep in thought. "Let's resolve it like this. Prepare an injection of tranquilizer while I distract the patient."

Usagi haven't heard any of that, staring with worry at the face of her beloved. The sharp pain in her ears buzzed at the edge of her perception like an annoying fly. Of course the Plain Usagi would cry from the scraped knee alone — and there were lots more scraped and bruises all over her... But it was Determinator Usagi who was now in control, the side of her whose most glaring difference was treating any pain as merely an annoying distraction. Anyone not knowing her well would usually be deeply confused by such a stark contrast against Plain Usagi. Take, for example, that time when she decided to sew a wedding gown. She didn't back off until she finished it even thought she ended with every one of her digits bandaged. She was always like that, even before she became Sailor Moon. But this side of her personality usually slumbered too deep to be noticed.

"I am sorry but you have to be examined." The doctor grabbed the unresponsive girl by her arm politely but firmly pulling her away.

"Hey! Easy, pal!"

His hand suddenly slipped, the nurse gave a small cry of surprise and something fell to the floor with a crack. The doctor turned around, annoyed, finding himself facing a guy and a girl, approximately the same age as the stubborn patient. The strange thing, the door stayed closed but the window was now open. The guy stepped forward crushing the tranquilizer filled syringe under his foot with a deliberate casualness. The doctor involuntarily stepped back. "Who are you! What are you doing here!"

"Her classmates," the guy said flatly, flicking his pigtail back over his shoulder. "Seeing that nobody injects her with stuff without her consent."

"Your classmate has serious condition," warned the doctor restraining his temper. "She urgently needs qualified help!"

"We know." The guy pressed the doctor away moving to bar him access to the wounded girl and the bed with the unconscious young man in it. "But there are more important things now."

"What could you possibly understand!" The doctor exploded. "She needs help immediately! If you let such trauma untended, the complications are practically guaranteed! Your classmate could be left a cripple for life, is that what you want?"

The short-haired girl who smelled like a concentrated lemon essence shuffled nervously casting a questioning glance at the guy. But that one stood firm: "It's more important for her to be at this wannabe martyr's side. And since she so decided, then so be it."

"What could she decide!" The doctor barely restrained himself as he glanced at the obviously catatonic half-bald blonde. "This girl is in a shock, she's incapable of making conscious decisions! Your dumb obstinacy causes her irrevocable harm!"

The guy's partner glanced at the unmoving blond but didn't say anything. The guy just crossed his arms making it perfectly clear he won't back off.

"Enough." The doctor gave out a tired sigh. "Nurse, call the security."

The couple of delinquents wasn't impressed although the girl looked uneasy.

The nurse soon returned followed by the security guard. Tanaka-san was an deceptively unnoticeable man below average height. Only his wide shoulders hinted at his profession. He stopped cold, a surprised expression flashing on his face — too briefly, though, for the doctor to notice.

"Well, what we have here?" he asked in a neutral tone looking around the people present.

"These two underage dimwits," the doctor replied with venom, "won't let us examine the injured patient here."

The guy narrowed his eyes casting a measuring look at the guard then deigned to give an explanation he obviously deemed the doctor undeserving of: "Our martyr here got that arm broken saving his girl." He cast a pointed look at the couple of wounded. "But last he saw when he blacked out was..." He fell silent choosing his words. "In short, her death looked inevitable. But she got out alive. Well, she then decided to be there when he wakes up, no matter what."

"She could undergo examination first," demanded the doctor. "After that she could sit her vigil as long as she wants."

The pigtailed guy looked at him like he was an idiot, which surprisingly stung the doctor. Surely it wasn't him who was a blind idiot here but these two ignoramuses, right?

"Well maybe we just wake him up?" the guard suggested with diplomacy uncharacteristic of him, as the doctor noted.

"Of course, let's jerk the traumatized patient around..." The doctor started to voicing his opinion on them all and their mental facilities then he fell silent as a sudden suspicion dawned on him. "The patient, Chiba-san... Didn't he, by any chance, lose his consciousness due to stress of seeing his girlfriend's seemingly inevitable death but not due to pain shock of his arm being fractured?"

"Well, yeah," grumbled the guy.

"Why didn't you say it sooner!" The doctor exploded. "That's a vital symptom that changes the whole picture! As his current unconscious state is of psychogenic nature it must be interrupted as soon as possible."

"What should we do?" asked the short-haired girl. Well, at least someone started to listen.

"The voice of the... injured girl here would be the best starting factor," the doctor explained not knowing yet her name.

All eyes turned to the blond sitting still. Who, of course, failed to notice that, being focused solely on the young man with his arm in a cast in the bed before her.

The short-haired girl who stank of lemon flavouring sighed and pulled the blond by her sleeve trying to explain it to her by gesticulating.

"I won't leave him until he wakes up," the deaf girl replied misunderstanding her. Everyone winced, she was incredibly loud. "Don't try to persuade me, Akane-chan. I am not leaving him."

"That wasn't what I meant," the short-haired one grumbled with a frustrated sigh.

The guy looked at them then bent down towards the unconscious young man just to bark loudly into his ear: "Hey, listen! Your meatball-head is alive, got that‼！ Stop slugging it while she wears a hole in the chair worrying for you‼！ Get up and console her! Now‼！"

"Mamo-chan‼！" wailed the half-bald blond. Her voice, shrill as a fire siren, hurt much worse than the guy's shout. "Don't bully my Mamo-chan!"

The wounded young man groaned, his eyes slowly opening and focusing on her...

Tears of joy gushed in powerful jets. "MAMO-CHAN‼‼" The crushing sonic boom brought everyone present to their knees, clutching at their ears. And that was just the beginning.

(シーンブレイク)

It took them a long time to get to the shrine. The city was returning back to life, the state of emergency recalled, but the area around the disaster zone was still in upheaval. The wide cordon cut through many streets adding to the transport problems caused by the impromptu civilian defense center surrounded by crowds of evacuees and rows of army trucks. The whole Tokyo downtown became one huge traffic jam.

In short, they had to walk to get to the shrine. Not once random passersby stopped in confusion trying to see what died nearby and how many weeks ago. Feeling terribly awkward, the girls quickened their pace.

(シーンブレイク)

"It doesn't hurt now, right, sweetie?" The nurse tried to console the blond tightening the cotton tampons on her ears. To be honest, she didn't believe her consoling would do any good: the girl's hair is her life, after all, but the poor little thing just learned she has been partly shaved clean. After all the years of loving care she had to put into her incredibly long hair!

An irrevocable tragedy.

The hardball classmates loitered just outside the emergency aid room trying not to get in the way. The fiancé with his broken arm had been left in his bed calming down after such a stress.

The door opening, the doctor entered pushing past the youngsters: "How is she?"

"Stricken with grief," wistfully replied the nurse. "Losing such a hair—"

"Not that." The doctor made a grimace of frustration. "What are the main symptoms?"

"It seems she isn't in any pain, but the loss of hearing is complete, as far as I can tell."

"Thought so." The doctor turned to the young couple. "I'm afraid the trauma your classmate suffered is quite serious. Everything points at extensive damage of middle ear. We'll know how bad it is as soon as the scans are processed." They didn't show any sign they understood how serious things were. "But she will definitely need a surgery, the sooner the better. Would you be so kind to give me her parents phone number? Oh, and her name too..."

"Usagi," the nurse said glancing at the partly filled form on the table. "Tsukino Usagi."

The guy and the girl visibly tensed at the mentioning of the word 'parents'. Well, what else would one expect from such a public?

"So we'll need a parental permission," the doctor started summing it up. "Also, try making her not sniff, it could worsen the trauma," he added addressing the nurse. "Well... Then we'd move her to the—."

"We have our ways to make it right," the guy interjected hastily as he grabbed the blond lifting her up in his arms. "Trust me."

"How could you even think of that‼！" The doctor exploded, his newfound respect for the teenage strangers evaporating like a snowball in Hell. "She urgently needs a surgery, otherwise she could stay a cripple for life! After that she'll need months of recuperation! And here you... you..." His voice caught from the righteous indignation.

"Umm, doc, we have everything under control." The guy backed away carrying the blond. "I'll... I'll find Sailor Moon in person, she'll heal her in a jiffy."

His short-haired partner flared with such a fierce glare that if the looks could kill he'd be a smoking pile of ash now.

The guard leaned into the room attracted by the doctor's shouts. He probably stayed nearby, just in case.

"Err... Bye!" the guy stammered as he laughed nervously casting sidelong glances at his infuriated partner. Then he jumped out of the window, still holding the sniffing blond in his arms.

"It's the third floor!" the doctor screamed in panic rushing to the window. Against his expectations, there were no mutilated bodies below Those two seemingly disappeared.

"We are very sorry for the trouble," the short-haired girl apologized bowing deeply. Then she too jumped out of the window. This time the doctor, as well as the nurse and the guard managed to see her jumping from a tree in the hospital's small garden to a lamppost, then onto a balcony across the street, onto another balcony couple stories above, then onto the roof finally disappearing from sight.

"That's... That's eight stories now," the doctor gasped out when he could talk again.

"Well, they are who I thought them be, no doubt now," the guard noted with satisfaction.

"Ah, it's those heroic young people who helped the Sailor-suited warriors to defend the city!" gushed the nurse exaltedly clasping her hands.

The doctor cast a subdued glance at her. "And here I thought both were creations of the yellow press' sick imagination."

"How could you not believe in heroes!" the nurse scolded him, her voice so accusing one could think he committed a sacrilege.

"Magic, insane kung-fu..." The doctor shook his head. "The ground is slipping from under my feet..." He turned to the guard. "By the way, thank you, Tanaka-san. You showed wonders of diplomacy today. I'm not sure if we could have resolved this peacefully without you."

The other man replied with a lopsided smile: "You have to be diplomatic when dealing with guys able to arm-wrestle a tank." Seeing the doctor's surprise he explained in more detail: "Those two were the heirs of a no-nonsense martial arts school. Guys widely known in certain narrow circles, so to speak. Aside from the fact that they are already a married couple in their young age, it is known that they helped the Sailor warriors to battle the recent monster invasion." The nurse gushed again at these words. "It is known that they stood toe to toe against things that were nigh invulnerable to even anti-tank weapons. No one knows surely if they defeated these or just delayed, but in my opinion even just delaying such a thing is a no small feat."

"I hope they'll be able to find that Sailor Moon." The doctor sighed. "That girl urgently needs a surgery. Well, that or an applied miracle."

"Those two would find her even if they had to dig to the center of Earth," the guard reassured him.

"It's a good thing we didn't register her yet," the nurse noted as she crumpled the filled form behind her back. "The less people know they are friends with the Sailor Senshi, the better."

The doctor rubbed the bridge of his nose. His twenty-four hours shift was just beginning.

(シーンブレイク)

There were five freshly washed girls in the Rei's room, all clad in the red and white miko garb: the owner of the room, Makoto, Minako, Haruka and Michiru. Luckily, there was a good surplus of such outfits in the shrine, used at big holidays by the volunteering young girls. The outfits were one-size-fits-all fitting even Haruka perfectly.

Ami got stuck in the bathroom scrubbing the Mercury computer clean in seven shampoos. Trying to figure out the demon's origin and the nature of the mysterious Ahs system would be rather pointless without her. Nevertheless, it was discussed anyway in the form of wild guesses and groundless theories.

Michiru tried time and again to scry using her mirror but frowning more and more. Usually she preferred not to abuse the power of her artifact knowing how dangerous divinations could be. But now... "It's no use," she said with a sigh. "It couldn't look into the future anymore, there's only a gray murk. It doesn't refuse as it did in most cases before, just grows dull and lifeless."

"I see," Rei nodded in a grim agreement. "I felt that something was amiss, but could not figure what exactly. I bet my fire readings would fail as well. It's like a curse was put on us to dull our ability to—"

"Wait," Michiru interrupted her, confused. "On the contrary, looking into the _past_·became easier than ever."

Everybody crowded around her looking into the mirror that showed Mercury flying high above a street.

"Whoa!" Minako avowed her amazement. "How did she manage to jump that high?"

Makoto slightly shuddered looking at the tentacles flailing and whipping across the street and the blue-skirted warrior performing deadly acrobatics above.

"So quick," Ami said quietly as she approached from behind, unnoticed. "Back then it felt like an eternity..."

She didn't even finish saying that when the other girls winced in sympathy: Mercury in the mirror slammed onto the ice jerking like a rubber doll then sliding away from the view.

"Ouch," commented Minako.

The girls turned around to Ami. She replied sounding unusually estranged: "That was not long before you got there." Remembering the following events she frowned, emotions awaking in her voice. "And we need to re-assess our tactics. In the light of what happened..." She fell silent trying to find less offensive words to describe the Jupiter's failure.

"In short, I almost killed the hostages when the monster suddenly used them as a shield." Makoto explained gloomily, saving her the trouble.

"What a low!" Minako exclaimed flashing with indignation.

"What did you expect from the spawn of evil?" Rei cast a half-lidded glare at her. "We must be ready to any, even the most imaginable, low to preempt the enemy from taking action."

"So that we won't have to choose between the bad and the worse," Haruka added ominously. "For example, between the lives of hostages and the lives of everyone in the city."

"I know, I know," grumbled Minako. "I was Sailor V, didn't you forget? It's just that... I can't put up with these lows no matter how many I see."

"So, do we know anything concerning the today's enemy?" Michiru decided to redirect the discussion onto a different track. "Alas, my mirror is blind here."

"I transformed without any problems," reported Ami. "But the computer is still dead. I have to perform diagnostics to know if it is even possible to repair it." She breathed out a frustrated sigh, slumping. "I don't know anything, not about the demon nor about that strange Ahs system. Without the scan data we could only guess."

"So we still know nothing," Makoto summed grimly. "What do we do?"

"Wait for the next attack and when it happens try to learn more?" Rei suggested no less grimly, just to kill the silence.

"We barely escaped this one!" exclaimed Minako who felt sick just thinking about another such demon.

"So we should stop pushing Ami," suggested Michiru. "Give her the breathing room, let her fix the computer. Meanwhile we could investigate the battlefield... Gather samples, sweep it with our mystic senses." She cast a meaningful glance at Rei. "Try to learn if the military would be able to dig something up."

"Wait until Setsuna crawls out of her lair," added Haruka. "She, of all people, should have clues even if vague."

This moment Ranma and Akané entered the room followed by Usagi. The blond's eyes were red and puffy, the napkin at its limit. There was a wide-brimmed fedora on her head, pulled down to the ears.

"Usagi-chan!" Makoto gasped. "What happened to you?"

"First she had been crying grieving overMamoru," Ranma said tactlessly, counting. "Then had been crying in joy when he woke up, then crying when learned what happened to her hair—"

"Ranma!" hissed Akané inflicting a Megaton Elbow Jab that made his ribs creak in protest.

"How did you get here so fast?" asked Rei, surprised. "Hadn't you have, by any chance, transformed — now, when the city is like an upside-down anthill and every reporter is digging around like a man possessed?" she added with sudden suspicion.

"No, no, relax. Ranma carried her," Akané reassured her.

"Well, how is he? Awake?" impatiently asked Minako.

Usagi finished her napkin off sounding like a charging elephant. Then she made an apologetic face pointing at her ear.

"He's awake and well," Akané replied instead while handing Usagi a new one. "Everything will be all right, he had a simple fracture in his forearm... And here we were afraid his shoulder blade could be broken."

"Isn't it long due for her to transform?" asked Ranma. "It's a bit hard to talk like this."

Usagi just stared at him with doe eyes.

Rei mimicked grabbing something on her breast then raising her hand up.

Usagi blink-blinked staring at her.

"Oh, for the..." Rei took the blonde's hand moving it over the brooch the other girl wore.

Usagi blink-blinked again. Rei's eye twitched.

Michiru patiently, with slow calming motions, produced her henshin rod pointing at it. Then she pointed at Usagi's brooch. Then at her henshin rod again.

Usagi's face lit as that proverbial light bulb thingie shone at her. A deafening shout and a blinding flash later, Sailor Moon stood in her place. With the fedora gone it became obvious that her hairdo was still ruined.

"She got it at last," quipped Rei.

Sailor Moon suddenly started twitching. Then she yelled "Ack! It's itching!" and plunged her little fingers into her ears trying to scratch in there. The itch was, probably, truly unbearable as she started dancing in place, twisting around. Finally, she lost her balance and crashed down unable to arrest the fall with her hands as the little fingers were firmly stuck in her ears. Luckily, the only loss was the low table that broke under her weight.

"Are you all right, Sailor Moon?" Makoto asked her while helping her to her feet. "We worried so much when we saw you turned deaf..."

"Aw, that was nothing," Sailor Moon waved her concern off. "It's just busted ears. It healed all right, didn't it?"

Haruka snorted suppressing a laughter.

"Hey, what's so funny?" unfriendly inquired Makoto.

"Nothing, never mind," the other girl hastily placated her. "It's just how this 'just busted ears' sounds if you stop to think of it. Our princess got used to the soldier's burden so quickly that we didn't even notice."

Makoto had no reply for this but Rei injected a barb: "So true. You just won't know that looking at her."

"For your information," Sailor Moon parried with dignity, "I now cry only when the battle is over." She hmmphed and put her nose up in the air.

"Shouldn't her hair have grown back already?" asked Ranma, avowing his confusion. Which promptly brought a second Megaton Elbow Jab unto his ribs.

Sailor Moon raised her hand feeling around the bald spot that took the place of her right odango. She sighed. "There is probably something wrong with my powers," she said dejectedly as she detransformed. "I'll have to find my new determination... Or even meditate under a waterfall," she joked half-heartedly.

"You are right about the determination," Rei agreed with her. "There's no one else whose powers would depend on their self-confidence so much. But enough. We still hadn't—"

A phone ringing interrupted her.

"I'll answer it," grumbled Rei heading out of the room, for the phone. Soon, although, the girls heard her shout "What?！" and the clatter of a receiver dropped to the floor.

They ran at once, afraid she was attacked. But there was only Rei, her face so pale it seemed blue, picking the receiver up with her shaking hands. "Yes, I see," she breathed out. "You need us to retrieve you? No? Good." She put the receiver down.

"That was Luna," she explained it for the anxious comrades. "We got on TV. In civilian."

That left them shell-shocked.

"Now we'll have to dodge these damn paparazzi at each turn," Haruka spat out in disgust. "And go anywhere only all together."

"We don't have any unfinished enemies left? Right, guys?" asked Ranma worrying for his mother. Considering what a scum they had to fight sometimes, their secret identities were the key element of their relatives' safety.

"You're lucky dogs," grumbled Minako whose cheerful spirit was dying by the second. "You're martial artists anyway, you could play dumb and say you were just helping and ain't know any Senshi." Her face soured like she ate a whole lemon. "When my parents learn of it..."

"Giku!" eeped Usagi at the sound of the scary word 'parents'. In her mind's eye the fire-breathing mom loomed like Godzilla.

"At least you don't have a father who'd waste no time involving you in his political machinations," replied Rei no less gloomily.

"You could come live at my place," suggested the orphan Makoto. "It would be a tight fit, though..."

Michiru exchanged glances with Haruka. "Do you think your relatives could be trouble?"

"No. They would likely demand that I keep to the shadows. And yours?"

"Unfortunately, mine are most likely to. For my own good, no less... There are some, let's say, short-sighted persons among them who would definitely try to use this knowledge for raising my popularity as a musician."

"Bugger," said Haruka summing it up. "However you look at the situation, we have to move immediately. I myself don't mind, but Hotaru..."

"Don't worry. I think she won't object," Michiru calmed the other girl placing a hand on her shoulder.

"We must hurry, then!" Haruka went to the exit. "Forgive us guys, we're going," she said over her shoulder. "While there's a chance to flee before the reporters arrive, we have to gather Hotaru's things and book a suite in some hotel." She and Michiru disappeared from view.

Ranma glanced around the six remaining girls: "What's the plan?" They still were the only defense the city had against the youma and worser magical creatures. "Now all our relatives could be in danger!"

Rei was the first to shake off the shock. "Frankly, I don't care what happens to my father. Grandpa... Grandpa won't leave the shrine. He may be an old kid, with him always embarrassing me, but he's dead serious in anything that concerns his calling. And he's unyieldingly stubborn." She paused gathering her thoughts. "I cannot change anything here. He'll stay at the shrine no matter the consequences. Everything is in the gods' will as he would say."

"Sa... Same here," stuttered out Ami. She looked extremely distressed. "Mom won't abandon her work... Even if we move... No, it's useless. Too easy to track us down. We'd have to live amidst a military base to... No, against a coordinated magical attack that's useless too." Her spirit fell completely. "So, there's nothing we could do? But then we... my mom will survive only until the first enemy who has an ounce of brain matter." She sniffed, tears beginning to run. "Sorry, guys. I couldn't think of anything to help."

"So, what do we do?" asked Makoto. "Abandon everything, abandon school and sit beside our relatives guarding them? In any case, you could count on me. I can cover for you."

"Well, maybe we'd just pretend that it wasn't us and we have no idea?" suggested Akané without much confidence.

"That won't work," Rei responded in a dull voice. "Luna said our faces were shown close-up, as well as Usagi saying she's Sailor Moon. We have a hour at best until someone connects this with the fact that we always hang together."

"So they could only fail at telling who is which Senshi," summed up Ranma. He turned to Akané. "However much I want to see pop's face when he learns I'm Sailor Sol, let's play ignorant. We're just martial artists, happened nearby, volunteered to help."

"Right," agreed Akané. "If Nabiki-neechan learns our secret, she could try to profit from it. And get herself in a very bad mess."

"Hey..." Ranma turned around peering intently at Minako. Depression hung around the girl like a black cloud, which is only good when one has to learn Lion Roar Blast. "Are you all right? Problems with relatives?" Thinking back he realized that he didn't know anything about her parents. Minako never, ever mentioned them. Well, it couldn't be that bad, couldn't it?

"Ma will skin me alive," Minako replied in a sepulchral voice, confirming his worst suspicions. "She pushes me around for every little thing, then there's this..."

"Umm, and your old man?" Ranma tried to find a solution.

"Spineless." Minako blew out a heavy sigh. "Kind, loving, but spineless. She'll skin him too. Just in case."

"I'll be damned if I let you go there alone!" Makoto said suddenly standing up and clenching her fists. "Are we a team or what? We've already done it for Ranma when he had falling out with his mother. We can do it again. Right, girls?"

"You don't have to ask!" Rei also stood up. "Just a minute, I'll leave a note for my grandpa."

Ami wiped tears with her fist, then took out a napkin and cleaned her nose with a trumpeting sound. "I'll go too. a moment, I'll just call my mother..." She went for the phone trying to look brave.

"And me too,..." began Usagi but Rei interrupted her: "Wait. You alone here have a normal family. You should be there with them."

"Do you think so?" asked Usagi, clearly in doubt. "I'd probably better go with you."

"Don't worry for us, we'll manage," Makoto reassured her.

"Go to them," Minako took a deep breath and shook herself up. "A family like yours is a priceless treasure, you should keep this trust safe. We'll deal with our problems then come to support you if you need." She didn't look like a condemned person anymore, there was a grim resolution in her eyes, that of someone ready to meet the approaching storm head on.

"Just go, Usagi-chan," Makoto cheered her. "That's something only you can do."

"Well, you are right," drawled Usagi who'd more eagerly go into a cage with lions.

"You'd better hurry guys," said Makoto addressing Ranma and his spouse. "While your luck still holds. Look, if someone notices you leaving the shrine... and the shrine's already burned, it's where Sailor Mars lives.

Ranma and Akané exchanged glances and went for the window without saying a word. Through the bushes, through back alleys, to the rooftops and try then, track them down. The shrine's main gate was now a trap.

(シーンブレイク)

It took Tsukino Kukoko three attempts to dial in the right number with her shaking hands.

"Dear," she said after a tormentingly long wait while the colleagues have been calling her husband to the phone extracting him from an important business meeting. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm all right. What happened?" Ken'ichi felt a cold crawling along his spine. His wife's voice was so unnaturally even... "Something happened to Usagi? To Shinji?"

"They..." A second long pause raised the tension tenfold. "They are alive and well. Did you watch the news on TV?"

"No," he said with a dry, nervous chuckle. "We don't exactly have time for such things here."

"That's good. But you must come home at once. Don't drive yourself, no matter what. Ask somebody to drive you home. And don't turn on the radio."

"But I can't just..."

"Please. Usagi... All of us could be in deep trouble."

"I'm coming, now" replied Ken'ichi, paling. What could his kind but giddy-headed daughter do to get on the radio? And on the TV? What was there that he would be better off not knowing? The house-father felt ill. His wife's insistence to not drive himself suddenly seemed a very good idea.

(シーンブレイク)

The reports on the central channels were in reservedly-respectful tones. We, the different news casters said as if in silent agreement with each other, appeal to you asking to refrain from over-reacting. The entire nation must consolidate in our respect for the privacy of heroes who many times risked their lives protecting us.

Of course there were a lot of little channels who dug into the dirty laundry with an unhealthy zeal, completely unashamed to bring up the details omitted by the central channels out of ethical reasons.

Nabiki's sharp eye caught her little sister with her husband despite them appearing on the screen for only a second. What a profit this promises, she thought. It's so lucky they happened there! I bet they even took a part in the action. Even if I pull just a fraction of details out of that dolt, I'll have a priceless exclusive intel in my hands...

"How rude of these reporters to even mention such things!" noted Kasumi, disapproval strong in her voice. That actually startled Nabiki. "And that's at the time when the heroes have to worry about the safety of those dear to them. After all, they don't hide their true identities out of a whim." She shook her head. "If someone started asking them such questions in person, the sailor-suited warriors could take it as a grave offense."

Nabiki cast a piercing sidelong glance at her sister, but the other girl again had that blissfully serene expression. Nabiki shivered a bit wondering an umpteenth time if the perfect housewife hid a sharp and snarky mind behind that clueless naiveté. However... However the point she raised was a valid one. You could seriously burn yourself here. Even Ranma may get really angry if approached from the usual angle.

It's decided, then, thought Nabiki. I won't plunge boldly forward stepping on the sleeping dragons' tails. I'll brazenly sneak between the sleeping dragons.

(シーンブレイク)

"I BIT OFF _WHAT?‼_" This panicked yell, full of nauseated horror and desperate denial, rang over the house where the Saotome-Tendou couple rented their apartment. Windows cracked. A powerful echo rolled back and forth over the city block reflecting from the walls and making random passersby hair stand on its end. If someone looked into their apartment at this moment, they'd see Akané rushing towards the bathroom and Ranma hitting the wall with his head saying "Who, who pulled my tongue!"

There was splashing heard from the bathroom, along with the gurgling as if someone washed their throat, and the choked retching sounds.

"I'm a moron." Ranma slid down the wall. "A complete one. Of course she didn't remember what she was doing while in the battle rage!" He grabbed his head with his hands curling into a ball. "But there was a helpful moron who reminded her of _every little thing_!" He fell to his side, curling up in shame. "If she'd start beating me up now, I won't even cover myself. Because I deserved it. Because I shoulda kept my stupid trap shut."

(シーンブレイク)

October 13, 2010. Translated December 30, 2010. Last edited March 18, 2012

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— Orphus users (4 bugs so far)


	6. The Dark Side of Fame

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 6,  
The Dark Side of Fame**

Ranma sat fidgeting in apprehension. His wife was so kind and... forgiving. It was giving him creeps. This was too good to be true. She couldn't have possibly forgiven such a blunder. The storm was coming.

"Is something wrong, dear?" Akané asked kindly.

"Gack!" Ranma started. "Err," he explained eloquently while sweating. "It's nothing... Nah. You must be imagining things. Ha-ha."

The apprehension grew stronger.

"Show me your tongue," she demanded with concern, then frowned with rising worry as she thoroughly examined the presented organ. "You know," she concluded, "you'd better get an appointment with doctor Tofu. Who knows what diseased stuff you swallowed in that thing's stomach. As I remember you were spitting some out..."

Ranma went green and disappeared with a gust of wind. The bathroom door slammed open.

Take that, Akané thought with a mixed feeling of satisfaction and guilt as she listened to the muffled retching sounds. Try your own pill for a change. However... She frowned. That was a dirty retaliation, a hit under the belt. They may be anything-goes followers but still... The feeling of guilt grew stronger. After all, what was _she_·thinking when she decided to attack the.. _combat_·organs of a tentacle demon with her teeth?

Akané shivered. There were some details about the recent battle that actively tried to slip out of her thoughts like living things, which in turn lead to a selective blindness almost like the one between Kuno and Ranma's curse. Akané shook her head, stubbornly resisting the oh-so-convenient forgetfulness.

When one has no strength left, all of their limbs are immobilized and there are _things_·crawling all over one's body... What does a fighter do when they don't give up till the very end? They use their teeth. Barely overcoming the urge to join her husband in his activity, Akané felt ashamed of herself. Ranma had jumped to her rescue without any hesitation, though it had been doubly revolting for him. He's a guy, after all; even when he's Sailor Sol.

And how did she show her gratitude...? With a petty needling, pouring salt on his wounds with the glee of a five-year-old. Oh the shame... She grabbed her head with both her hands.

"What have I done," she berated herself silently. "How do I make up for this...? That's it, I'll let him make the dinner today. I won't even raise my voice if he... says something."

(シーンブレイク)

A downcast girl walked down the street, her waist-length mane of blond hair somehow dull. At her side, supporting her, there was another girl, a rather large one for a Japanese schoolgirl, whose chestnut hair was made into a high ponytail. Both were dressed in the red and white miko garb.

There was a nasty residue in her souls.

"Don't be so down, Minako-chan," Makoto tried to reassure her friend. Without much conviction, though. The meeting came out ugly, much worse than even the first meeting with Ranma's mother who at least had found it in herself to admit she was wrong. But this one... Makoto shook her head. No, she had to think positively. There's always hope.

"It's over," the dulled blond said in a dead voice. "Now I really have one road left, to whore myself out..."

"Don't you dare!" Makoto grabbed the other girl by her shoulders shaking her vigorously. Minako's head lolled listlessly from side to side, her eyes dull and lifeless. "Don't you dare repeating after that... that..." She couldn't bring herself to call her friend's mother names the woman deserved.

Makoto sighed heavily, remembering the massive and unkempt woman, the last traces of former attractivity erased from her face by petty pique and envy, spit flying everywhere. The words dished out would mar even a garbage bin. The poor Minako was dragged through the mud a good dozen times, stirred there for a better effect then contemptuously spilled out into the gutter. Makoto sighed again. It was highly possible that their intervention just made everything worse.

Ami, who had barely recovered from the stress of dealing with the demon, was hurt almost as bad as Minako. When the last hope for reconciliation was gone and they were leaving... Minako leaving with them... And that's while both her parents were still alive! Makoto couldn't fathom this. It was just too unfair... Ami, unable to bear it any more, hastily apologized before striding home distraught. Then Rei too leaved them going home to nurse a bruise she got when the rampant mother threw her down the stairs.

It happened naturally that Minako had nowhere to go but to Makoto's.

"You can live at my place," the tall girl told her. "It's quiet there, they won't find it anytime soon. Unlike the shrine. Still, it would be cramped... Ah, well."

The blond nodded, looking a bit more alive now. She was ruffled, pouting sourly, but that still beat the mood of one going for the gallows.

(シーンブレイク)

The chopsticks in Akané's hand broke with a sharp, angry crack. Ranma kept eating, his expression grim. This time his wife's anger wasn't directed at him. That was a small consolation, though. She sat frozen, staring into the television screen. Her anger was terrifying, far surpassing the banal reddening and eye twitch. It was the stage distinctive by its outward calm, almost serene expression and a sweet smile, the one that gives the more observant men shivers. Only her pupils shrunk into pinpricks and the eating implement ground into saw-dust in her hand hinted at how enraged Akané was.

Ranma wisely kept his silence eating at his top speed in case the destruction would go beyond the chopsticks.

Akané emitted some unintelligible sounds, but it was no use. The words for that degree of outrage weren't invented yet.

On the screen, a noisy crowd of reporters hounded the coursed Ami who desperately tried to get out. Some of the questions the out of control paparazzi asked weren't even suitable for the day time table — but that didn't stop the vultures. Finally Ami managed somehow to squeeze out of the crowd and run away hiding her face. The picture jerked, then showed the sky: obviously the vultures tripped over each other in their haste, piling up. The next image switched to a newscaster who kindly retold the hot news: _The Senshi faced a real tentacle demon_ — a blurry, grainy still shot of the said demon filled the screen — _The heroines managed to save several underage hostages from the abuse but, it seems, at a heavy price to themselves_ — the screen switched to a blurry, shaking footage of Iris advancing on the cameraman, a bold caption of "Mercury?" superimposed over the image. The worst part was the various trash sticking in the foreground completely hiding the bikini-esque remains of her seifuku from view, which lead to a false impression of the girl being completely nude. — _Their retaliation of epic proportions then destroyed a whole city block_ — view from a helicopter, a huge water-filled crater surrounded by partly collapsed buildings — _And now the main sensation of the day: the identities of the sailor-suited warriors finally get uncovered!_ — a no less shaky and blurry footage, unfortunately having a good audio: Usagi saying that she is Sailor Moon.

Akané reached for the remote and killed the sound. The remote crunched in her hand and the frantic jumping of images taken from various view points continued in a heavy silence. Someone was agitatedly telling something on background of the building where Mizunos lived, someone roamed the school in a futile search for the suddenly missing principal. Just one time the reporters met a deserving rebuke when a pissed heavy-set woman threw them down the stairs. The sequence ended with repeat of the hunting the poor, coursed Ami.

Akané just sat there slowly releasing the steam.

Having finished his dinner, Ranma tried to bring his wife out of her blues: "Well, I too want to hit them. But we can't just go and beat up the entire press. That's not just one clever bugger with a camera, that's a mass insanity.

Akané didn't reply for a long time. Then she squeezed out: "Unfair. That's too unfair."

"Be thankful you didn't see yet what the tabloids would say," he said unthinkingly. "These guys at the TV at least have to watch what they're saying. But the yellow press... Those'd gladly write how many times Mercury was raped, all in great detail from a bunch of imagined witnesses, and...

Akané's eyes went wide, she paled, her clenched fists started shaking.

Oops, was the lone thought that marched through Ranma's empty head. No, OOPS. An epic, final oops. Oh the tongue of mine, outrunning the speed of sound and reaching the speed of digging me a nice hole... That's it. She'll start beating any moment now...

"All of that is my faaaault‼！" howled Akané gushing tears.

Ranma face-faulted, his features making a firm contact with the floor.

"If not for me...!" His wife continued her self-incrimination smearing tears and snot. "Poor Ami-chan! How cruel! How brutally unfair, waaaaah!

"Err... You didn't do anything that bad," Ranma tried awkwardly to calm her down. "All you did was shooing one paparazzi off... He'd find another...

"Waaaah!" She cried louder. "If not me butting out! If I just noticed earlier that my seifuku's in rags...!

Oops squared.

Ranma frantically searched for something to say — in vain. The self-incrimination hit true, you couldn't just claim otherwise. Which didn't lessen the fact that he, himself, poured salt on a fresh wound. Thus he kept silent. He felt like a dumb-ass but kept silent.

Finally Akané cried herself out and fell silent. She was pale and sorrowful, like death warmed over. "I must tell," she said suddenly.

"What?" Ranma didn't get it.

"I must tell it was me," Akané repeated with conviction. "That it was me on that video, not Mercury."

"Are you nuts?！" Ranma was horrified. "Do you want to be hunted like her? Do you want perverts whispering behind your back? Do you want your name dragged through the dirt? Do you have any idea what people would think of you?"

Akané did not falter. "I must," she replied. "It's all my fault."

Ranma didn't have a ready answer for that. "Well," he said after a minute, "if that helps at all... They could keep hounding Ami anyway so you wouldn't help her, just harm yourself.

"No matter," Akané did not relent. "I still must."

Ranma contemplated the situation for a while, then brought his last argument: "What about your family? It's them why we've decided to keep our secret identities while we still can."

This made Akané stop and think.

"And more, all this crap'll splatter them too," added Ranma. "Imagine Kasumi-san or Nabiki against that horde of vultures."

The girl wilted under the weight of the choice she had to make. Ranma, by some reason, felt like a complete bastard, despite saying the truth.

Akané sat for a long time, deep in a grim contemplation. Finally she straightened up, her eyes alight with determination. "Truly, the duty is heavy as mountain... I will tell. I cannot do otherwise. We are comrades, we stand for each other to the end...

"Well, if you decided so..." Ranma agreed grimly. "I'm with you. To kick away the more mettlesome ones and stuff. But I can't cover you from the shitstorm you're calling upon yourself."

"Thank you," said Akané, her voice bleak. "But... Right, it's my trial. I should be the one to withstand it."

"So, you'll just go there and tell them?" he asked. "Go out before that crowd and tell them everything? They won't dissipate from Ami's home anytime soon."

"I..." Akané hesitated. It's easy to say, much harder to do. "I... I'm scared," she admitted, shivering. "But I can't go back on my decision or procrastinate."

"Practice it by telling your folks first," suggested Ranma. "Your father, your sisters... They would be better off knowing it all first hand than from the journa-get-it-wrongers."

"Right!" exclaimed Akané with a shameful relief grabbing at the chance to postpone the moment of truth, if just a little.

(シーンブレイク)

Usagi dragged down the street with all the energy and swiftness of a snail suffering from arthritis. The passersby often glanced at the weirdly dressed girl: a wide-brimmed hat pulled down to her eyes made a sharp contrast with the red and white miko garb. The surprised glances were guaranteed.

Such attention wasn't improving Usagi's mood. The apprehension hung around her like an almost palpable dark cloud. Every little thing reminded her that the irrevocable had happened. The most hopeless battles looked now far from the worst that could have happened. No, the worst lay ahead.

The girl woke from her dark thoughts noticing she stays at a pedestrian crossing having already missed two greens now. Sighing heavily she went to cross the street. It was red for her now but the traffic jam was so solid and unmoving, stale even, that nobody had energy to honk. Meandering through the mass of cars stuck blocking the crossing Usagi turned to the street where she lived. Here's her home. She got here so incredibly quickly. The natal habitat approached inevitably like doom, seemingly without any effort from her legs, which for some reason were a bit shaky in the knees. Here's the door. So quickly... The blond swallowed with effort, her throat suddenly dry. Every step, every move towards the implacable fate was harder than the previous one. Quietly opening the door Usagi slipped inside, afraid to give her presence out with a loud sound. She didn't even have the resolve to say the traditional "I'm home". Shivering slightly she peeked into the kitchen. Facing the evil sorceress possessed by a mighty dark god, that wasn't scary. Looking beyond this corner, on the other hand... Mom wasn't there. Breathing a quiet sigh of relief she slid towards the family room, quiet like a ghost. Dying, that wasn't scary. Diving towards fate unknown into the dark vortex, the very essence of an alien planet eater, that wasn't scary at all compared to the need to look beyond the next corner.

But most of all she was afraid of the very nature of her fear. Like there was an another, final truth and she hid from its merciless stare like an ostrich who stuck its head under a pillow

Swallowing with effort she made another step forward. Could they be out, please? Just for a little while? TV is running? Well, they could have forgotten to switch it off, right? Tearing through the endlessly stretching second, fighting the sudden leaden weight, Usagi peeked into the family room.

Mom was here. And dad, by some reason, too. And Shinji.

The tension reached its limit. That was it. "I'm home," she managed to squeeze out despite feeling unable to say a word. Then she stepped into the room crumpling the hat in her hands, she didn't even notice when she took it off. She desperately tried to smile.

Mom was crying. Like a stab to the heart. Dad, it seems, sat distracted, unable to notice anything outside the TV screen he stared at. There was some images flipping there but she didn't look. There was the most important thing overshadowing everything: she again made her mom cry!

"Usagi, are you really Sailor Moon?" Shinji asked with an unhealthy fascination, forgetting even to add 'stupid' to her name.

"Yes, that's me!" Making a forced smile she took her classic sentai stance. "The pretty soldier of love and justice..." The forced merriness seeped out of her words like water through a sieve. The audience didn't appreciate her speech, didn't appreciate it at all — not counting the foolish Shinji. "Err, Sailor Moon... arrived..." she awkwardly finished the signature phrase.

"What would we do if you were killed?" asked mom through the tears. "Crippled?"

Usagi just now noticed how red and puffy her face was. Meaning mom was crying for a long time now. Double stab at the heart. And why doesn't dad react staring into the TV like a somnambulant?

"Uh, you don't have to worry!" proclaimed Usagi with a strained, very strained carelessness in her voice. "When I'm Sailor Moon I'm ten times stronger and ten times tougher and I heal really fast, even the broken ribs heal in just five minu..."

Oops.

Mom's crying gained in intensity, the distraught woman managed something barely intelligible about why she wasn't more careful and why she had to get into danger. Usagi opened her mouth and barely stopped herself from blurting that the third degree burns heal even faster... She mumbled unintelligibly... It was a disaster! She had to say something right now, to return things to normal... What to say? About how good she is at dodging the automatic fire...? No way. About multiple averted ends of the world, about the enemies able to level a city block and how cleverly they've defeated them...? No, not this one!

Her panicked internal struggle was interrupted by the TV switching to a particular blurry a grainy picture. Usagi's heart fell: she couldn't not recognize her own joyful and bloodied face. And the Ami's strained voice heard clearly enough: "..was a random folding of space. The volumes were split unpredictably. She could've been cut in half. Or just her face could've been sent hell knows where. Or a part of her internal organs..."

Usagi paled. _That_, she didn't hear, being completely deaf at the time. She involuntarily touched the bald spot where her hair was cut flush to the skin, and the meaning of those words sank fully. Her imagination painted several graphic, detailed pictures. Usagi felt ill. Then the true horror finally hit her: mom! Mom had heard it all!

Usagi slowly turned around, hey eyes wide in horror finally seeing everything. Everything she couldn't deny anymore.

Mom, crying powerlessly draped over a couch arm-rest. She wasn't strong and imposing anymore, stopped being the indestructible pillar and ultimate authority she once was. Her shoulders shaking from the weight too heavy for them. Dad, stunned and lost like he got washed out losing his usual humor and confidence. He didn't know what to do, how to go on, it was all in his eyes. Fragile, vulnerable they both weren't ready for the harsh reality. And then there was Shinji looking at her with a fascinated horror, a little boy of the age when the kids think they're immortal... He couldn't possibly understand...

The unassailable castle walls suddenly turned into paper sliding doors, the valor of a samurai the only obstacle in the enemy's way. And that samurai was she, herself.

It's oh so hard to be the last pillar of hope.

The world around blurred, distorting. Tears started rolling from her eyes. "I hate... hate to grow up!" Usagi sniffed trying to hold the flood in. "Mom, don't cry! Mom!" She walked up to the older woman and hugged her, but as a result they both just cried harder.

"I... I just don't want to lose you!" managed the blue haired housewife. "It hurts to even think of..."

"I'm sorry, mom, I'm so sorry!" the half-bald blond said, crying. "I wanted so badly to just live a peaceful, ordinary life..." She cried even harder from the onrushing memories, unable to continue for a while. Both just sat there, hugging each other, their pain slowly carried away with a salty wetness.

Some unknown time later Usagi collected herself and continued, quietly but with a raw sadness in her voice: "I tried... Bu.. but even the Silver Crystal itself cannot make that wish come true." She smeared the tears around with the back of her fist, then, more consciously, reached for a napkin and began wiping her reddened face. "I'm sorry, mom. Nothing could be done. Guess this never-ending fight is my destiny... My duty..." She cleared her nose with a loud trumpeting sound. "But we try anyway, and make ourselves believe, and goof around as best as we can... And we live normal lives whenever we can...

Ken-ichi listened to his suddenly mature daughter and something inside him fell. He'd heard of something like that. Soldiers at war often joke and laugh, unable to live without humor — because they'd break otherwise under the crushing pressure of the harsh environment and knowing that you could die any moment. But the literal meaning of the Sailor Senshi title is exactly like that: sailor-suited soldiers. What a merciless, inhuman thing thought of making soldiers from the children barely beginning to live? What a filthy scum...? "Why..." His voice caught. "Why did it have to be you...? Whose idea was it?！ Don't they have people trained for this sort of things? Soldiers, special ops?"

He was replied, unexpectedly, by a middle-aged woman's voice from his back: "No one else could do it. Only the chosen can become sailor-suited soldiers." The voice was so haughtily lecturing that Ken-ichi saw red. Sharply turning around to face the speaker he saw no one there. "Not every confrontation could be resolved via mundane means, but the talent to wield the power of a planetary focus is extremely rare..." His gaze turned down, at the back of the couch. So here she is, the one who was speaking. Here's that inhuman, tailed thing. Here's that filthy, hairy scum...

The windows shook, a harrowing yowl followed by the angry father's shouts "Disenchant her at once, furball! Do you hear me?！ Make everything go away‼！" and Usagi's yells "Dad! Stop strangling Luna!", all mixed into one unholy clamor.

(シーンブレイク)

The Tendou and Saotome families gathered around the dining table in the Tendou home sat in a heavy, unfamiliar silence. Only Akané fidgeted as if trying to say something, even opening her mouth at times, but couldn't find her resolve.

Which, of course, didn't go unnoticed by Nabiki's sharp eyes: "What's the matter, little sis? Come on, spill it."

The youngest made a deep breath, just like she usually did before breaking bricks, as Nabiki noted.

The TV flashing in silence showed the notorious footage of a presumably nude Senshi advancing on the camera.

"I wonder..." began Nabiki, distracted by the scene.

Akané shuddered. Was it a mere coincidence or a sign from on high to stop dawdling, she took the hint. "It's me," she croaked with a dry throat.

"Excuse me?" Nabiki turned to her.

"It's me," repeated the youngest sister in a hoarse voice, burning the bridges. "There, on the screen. That's not Sailor Mercury, that's me, Sailor Iris."

It's not often the mere mortals could witness Nabiki Tendou flabbergasted. The middle sister blinked stupidly, unable to comprehend what she just heard... Finally collecting herself she fixed the pigtailed guy with a harsh glare: "Now, Sao... Ranma-kun, what potion or whatever did she swallow this time?"

"She didnt," he grumbled darkly. "It's all true."

"That's right," added Akané gaining resolve with each word. "I'm Sailor Iris add it was me whom they filmed in such an obscene state. They hound Sailor Mercury... Ami-chan for nothing, it wasn't her...!

"Whaaat?" asked Nabiki, her eyes bugged out. The youngest sister's proclamation was so insane it fit the chaos and mayhem of the last years perfectly. "Are you saying that..." She gasped, paling. "That it was _you_·raped by that demon?"

The opened newspaper in the patriarch's hands shook, a distant ominous rumble came from behind the thin paper shield,

Genma started then rapidly bleached out. An instant later his after-image unraveled leaving no trace of him.

Kasumi dropped her tea slapping her palms over her mouth opened in a silent "Oh!".

"Nobody raped me!" the reddened Akané squeaked without much conviction. "He was stopped before...! I mean, Sailor Sol saved me...! I mean..."

The distant rumbling grew closer, the newspaper shaking and rustling.

"Of course, that explain why you're naked," Nabiki parried with a grim scepticism, "On TV for the whole nation to see, no less."

"She wasn't naked," injected Ranma. "She had enough left to keep her modesty. If that asshole didn't film through the trash...

"All right," agreed Nabiki. "But adding 'she had enough left' and 'he was stopped before'..." She fully turned towards Ranma, her gaze becoming cold and piercing. "Sao... Ranma-kun. Where have _you_·been while my sister fought that abomination?"

"Well, I..." Ranma began without enthusiasm.

The ominous rumbling came close and the newspaper shield just unraveled. From behind it came... No, not a demon head. Worse. It was a hyper-protective father on a warpath. Two white orbs stared at Ranma and the guy squeaked pitifully, paralyzed like a rabbit in front of a Godzilla-sized snake. "Ranma-kun..." rumbled the accusing voice of heavens promising unimaginable punishments.

"Don't you dare, dad!"Akané jumped in front of her husband throwing her arms wide. "Ranma fought among us! It was he who saved me...! And Ami-chan... So hands off!"She replied with a fierce glare of her own.

Startled by the sudden rebuke, Souun immediately lost his steam. He never had it in himself to go against his little girls. "But, Akané..."he protested weakly.

"But didn't you say you've been saved by Sailor Sol?"asked Nabiki, clearly in doubt.

"Son!"barked Genma marerializing out of thin air. "Explain yourself immediately! The Saotome honor..."He could've been erupting for the next half an hour but Ranma interrupted his verbiage in a most decisive and unexpected manner.

"Sol Stellar Power, MAKE-UP!"

A flashy transformation later came a long, utter silence.

(シーンブレイク)

May 7, 2011. Translated May 19, 2011

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— Crescent Pulsar R  
— Orphus users (5 bugs so far)


	7. A Long Talk

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 7,  
A Long Talk**

Everyone present, save Akane, sat staring at Ranma who've suddenly transformed into Sailor Sol. The fiery haired girl in white and red sailor-fuku stood hip-shot, staring back frowningly.

Genma tried a few times to utter something monumentally preachy but his brain locked up, his eloquence — aka verbiage — failed him.

"Kinda like that," Sol summed up looking around the ones present darkly.

"Oh, it's like a fairy tale!" exclaimed Kasumi, the first to get out of her shock. "Ranma-kun, you're a true hero!" There was so much sincere awe in her voice that Ranma felt awkward. "It's such a honor to become a heroine protecting the love and justice! And Akane-chan too...!"

"Well," drawled Sol, "I... it's kinda..." She wanted to tell how much that 'honor' cost her but couldn't bring herself to quench the eldest Tendou sister's pure joy.

"Hmm..." Nabiki was the next out of the stupor. "Of course, it all makes sense now." Her eyes had a trouble-promising appraising look. "An interesting deal we have here."

"What's so interesting," grumbled Sol. "Akane plans to go out in front of the cameras and tell everything!" She cast a sidelong glance at her wife. "She got it her head that it's her fault they're hounding Mercury."

"Well, then..." drawled Nabiki and her gaze became even more appraising, to the point of inducing shivers along one's spine. "If little sis wouldn't back on her intent to jump into the boiling water..." She glanced at the youngest sister but the other girl's expression just became more bull-headed. "Then we have a veritable treasury of possibilities open for us!" she finished in a careless, half-joking tone.

"Don't you understand?" Sol barked at her, livid. "All those vultures," She pointed at the paparazzi flicking on the TV screen. "All that Mongol horde will come here! Then they'll hound you! And Kasumi! It will be a disaster!"

Nabiki looked at her with pity. With a condescending pity. "And in which way, pray tell me, a crowd of fact-craving reporters is a disaster?" Her voice was thick with undisguised skepticism.

"Err..." Sol tried to imagine Nabiki in Ami's place. It didn't work. First and foremost because Nabiki just doesn't do 'coursed'. Damn, she's almost impossible to imagine scared! Sol could only admit — silently, of course — that the crowd of paparazzi would very quickly turn into a herd of cash cows bowing before the imperturbable Nabiki. And what 'facts' they'd get... She narrowed her eyes unfriendly at the wife's sister.

"Spill the details, Ranma-kun." Nabiki rubbed her palms greedily. "All of them. That's of course if you want them to stop inventing wild stories about your wife out of lack of facts."

"She's your sister, by the way!" Sol replied, indignant. The threat was so veiled you couldn't find a fault with it.

"Of course she is!" parried Nabiki, the offended dignity itself. "It's my duty to help my kin first and foremost! Who are you taking me for?"

The fake tear came out so convincing that Sol backed off: "I didn't mean it like that..."

"So start telling me." Nabiki perked up, the offended expression slipping off of her in an instant.

"Stop it!" Akane slammed her palm onto the table. "We'll manage without you playing middle man!"

"And how exactly?" Nabiki lifted an eyebrow ironically. "By just going there and telling them?"

"Yes!" The bull-headed youngest sister grit her teeth. "Exactly!"

"Oh my poor, naïve little sister," Nabiki drawled with an exaggerated pity. "You don't even understand, don't you...? Whatever you say," Her gaze hardened, "everything will be taken wrong!"

Akane stumbled back from the force of this conviction.

"People like to hear things backward," continued the middle sister. "Didn't socializing with Kuno-chan teach you anything...? But the paparazzi," she concluded forcefully, "_profit_·from getting everything wrong. It's their bread, their _specialization_."

"But... but what should I do?" asked Akane, pale but refusing to back off.

"What should you do?" Nabiki grinned sunnily, radiating a patronizing benevolence. "Of course you should entrust this matter to a real pro!"

"How much?" asked Sol.

Nabiki replied with a look. With a look of someone hurt by a terrible betrayal. Sol felt an unbearable shame burning her up. "How could I demand payment from my family?" The middle sister sniffed. "Especially in such harsh times...?"

"Yeah, yeah." Akane snorted, this was too small a caliber to affect her. "Whom you're planning to skin then?"

"Lessee..." Nabiki drawled with an exaggerated thoughtfulness, lifting her eyes towards the ceiling. "We have the family, then we have the reporters ready to sold their last shirt for the sensational material... Hmm, but whom, really, should I rip for an arm and a leg? What a hard choice..."

"We got it, cut this out already," grumbled Sol. "What do you want to hear about?"

"Everything!" Nabiki's eyes glinted, she reminded a predator aiming for its preay at this moment. "Starting from the point you two managed to become superheroes. I must admit I didn't think you had it in you, Ranma-kun, to become a magical girl. How did they manage to conscript you?" She then added irony into her voice. "Could it be that you asked for it?"

"Exactly, son!" injected Genma missing the irony. "Despite your vow to be the manliest man —"

"Aw, shut up, pops!" the beatiful fiery-haired Senshi back talked. "Like you don't know how it happens. You help, just one time, out of sheer kindness, to defeat a monster. And gotcha, they bring up the sacred duty, honor and stuff."

"And you've just agreed?" Genma frowned disapprovingly. "The honor of the school is one thing but if some stranger starts preaching about duty —"

"It's not that easy, all right!" Sol sharply interrupted him, then lowered her voice a bit: "The duty is true, it would be dishonorable to try and weasel out... Like I wanted to have this curse for the rest of my life... Can't get rid of it..." She stopped short.

"It's the reincarnation," explained Akane. "In his previous life, he was a girl who had a great honor bestowed upon her... And, it seems, even death cannot free you from this duty."

"So that's how it is," drawled Nabiki. "It's fate, then? And even the curse found him for a reason?"

"No one but him could wield the power of sun," added Akane. "If he refused... The Senshi power may have been not enough. Then one of our many enemies would win... And we'd be no more." A lone tear rolled down her cheek. There were things she'd never tell. Like how much it hurt when they all died in the black storm of chaos.

"Many enemies?" asked Nabiki. "Like those monsters the SDF tried to push out of Juuban right when you two were living at Miyagi's? But those things, as far as I heard, were impossible to hurt with any weapon."

"Ah, that's an exaggeration," Sol replied cockily. "Two or three anti-tank missiles - that's, if the youma stood still and let them hit it... Well, that or a couple o' sailor suited warriors... Though that was stretching it, our gals took a bit of risk back then. Well, or one lil' me." She smiled wide. "But our true enemy was that freak, whazzit his name... Jeidite, who've made all those critters. He had a few hundred of these in his world.

"A few hundred?！" echoed Nabiki. Her voice didn't, of course, catch. But the knowledge was sobering.

"Well, yeah," affirmed Sol. "If not for us breaking into the center of his base - right by the army preparing for invasion - and finishing the bastard off, his hordes would've overran everything and everyone. Then either he would've conquered the world or someone would've nuked what was still left of Tokyo.

"Also there were, but those were beaten before us," added Akane, "A world devourer from an alternate universe with his apostles - he built the Mugen Academy as his lair." Nabiki nodded. It was hard to miss the events of the last year, the panic and the crater that was left of the elite academy. "Before that, there were psycho terrorists from the future on their space ship... And before that the old enemies who destroyed Silver Millennium in the past killing the Senshi in their previous lives. These, too, were just puppets of a greater evil bent on destruction."

"And that war was fought by fourteen years old girls, homely and absol-lutely untrained," Sol added with disgust. "How could I stay aside? Well, they have some experience now, they held these two years somehow without us. But that's still wrong."

Kasumi nodded serenely: everything was right in the world, the magical heroines standing against the evil protecting the peace and life of Earth.

Nabiki felt very, very uncomfortable, for the first time she truly regretted about learning too much.

Genma made a wise face.

It was Souun who exploded gushing tears: "My little girl risks her life everyday fighting demonic hordes...!" His gaze burrowed into Ranma, the gaze of a wounded but still dangerous beast. "And how does it correlate with your promise to protect her? Huh, Ranma-kun?"

"Exactly, son!" added Genma.

"I didn't have a choice," Sol admitted reluctantly. "When the youma attacks and abductions began, I helped the Senshi at first... Then I grew afraid they'd abduct Akane when I'm not there... They hunted for people with a strong ki..." The fathers exchanged glances. "I refused to be a Senshi, I left them without my help, just to be close to her at all times..." She sighed sadly. "In short, I behaved like a fool. I only had to go shopping once, and she was abducted anyway, and I still wasn't there..." She waited until the fathers' outcries of shock and anger subsided, then continued: "But I saved her none the less. Freed her from the very heart of the enemy fortress. But there was no way back to Earth from there, we got stranded on that desert world for whole two months." She smiled warmly at her memories. "A bare desert, no food, no water, the only entertainment was fighting for your life against the things that came after you, or raiding the enemy's garden to escape starvation. Well, Akane fought alongside me."

"And you let her? Ranma-kun!" Souun's gaze was burning, frightening.

Sol didn't falter. "Yes, I did. There was no better way to protect her other that train her real good. What else could I do? Keep her behind me, hide her from enemies? I couldn't act with such a disrespect to her. She is a martial artist like me, she has the right to defend herself."

Akane made a fleeting smile.

"Well, that's the story," Sol continued. "After all she withstood after all the demons she defeated, she fights so good now, she flattened Shampoo without breaking a sweat... And I believe in her.

"Ranma-kun...!" Souun exclaimed with a deep feeling as he sniffed, tears streaming.

"So, that was when you learned she was also a Senshi in her former life?" Nabiki asked a pointed question.

"No, I wasn't," corrected Akane.

"She's the only one," Sol explained with pride, "who was made a Senshi in this era. For her heroism shown during the hostages rescuing operation and during the assault of enemy lair."

"Heroism during assault?" Souun's voice rumbled ominously.

"We had to put all our powers together," Sol parried. "Including mine. To give all of it to Sailor Moon. The bastard turned out to be impervious to everything but her purification!" She felt again that indignation at seeing the blond pretty-boy smirk as he shrugged off her strongest flame. "Well, and there was no time to think of something else, we had to finish him as quickly as possible. He was pulling his power out of living people, plus his entire army was closing in on us. You know the last chance when you see it, it was 'now or never'. But there still were three unfinished monsters left, of his elite guard. Akane diverted their attention while we, the Senshi, performed our magical circle thingy.

"You say it like she wasn't one of you yet?" Nabiki's eyes narrowed, her tone not kind at all.

"Err, no," Sol didn't like where this was heading. "She was made one later, after the war."

"So she fought these things alone, without any protection or help?" the father, who've just calmed down, was smoking again threating to erupt.

"No, no," Akane hastily tried to smooth the conflict over. "It wasn't as bad as it sounds! Applied on top of my usual ki-strengtening the seifuku magic doesn't give me that many benefits!"

"Oh, really?" Nabiki replied with undisguised skepticism. "Who would've thought."

"No, she's right," Sol cautiously glanced at the father-in-law. The man didn't look ready to erupt right then. "After what we achieved with our ki, there's barely a double increase in strength. In the hand-to-hand the most useful benefit of our transformations is the greatly improved stamina. To really tire you have to go all out for several hours. Well, that and the healing rate. Sometimes they smack you so hard you'd spend a week bedridden, but as a Senshi you recover in five or ten minutes." She cast a sidelong glance at Genma who was frowning. "Don't preach me about 'what have I taught you'. That's teamwork, not one-on-one fights. There are times when you have to put yourself in the harm's way while the others power up their finishing techniques... Even worse, there are times when you have to cover your wounded while demons would do anything to finish those who are down off..." Her eyes widened, as it dawned on her just where she was leading this talk. Carefully, very carefully she glanced aside, at the father-in-law... The man wasn't erupting, though. He sat, his face exaggeratedly-stoic, tears streaming silently down it.

"Hmm," Nabiki was still skeptical. "If that's all, what was the reason to become a Senshi? For you personally?"

"Well, I also have awesome magical techniques," Sol added bursting with pride. "The strongest after the Princess... Well, there's Saturn but she doesn't count. One plasma blast, and a strong enemy's ash."

Nabiki snapped her fingers. "That's it! The warehouse district. It was your handiwork?"

"Err..." Sol scratched the back of her head, nervous. "Well, it's complicated... We were ambushed by a horde of small youma, all throwing acid. Many of us were down and the fight wasn't going well. I mean, it was really bad. The things outnumbered us so much they could simply rotate, the wounded stepping back to regenerate, the fresh ones taking their place. In short, pressed us for the kill. Well, I had no other choice than to try my ultimate technique." She barely held herself from adding 'suicidal'. Some truths better stay hidden.

"Warehouses?" Akane asked with a sudden worry. "What happened to the warehouses?"

"Well, um, do you remember as Ami dragged me to her place, way back, before you were abducted?"

"How could I forget! You had your arm broken, haggard like... Wait, are you saying that..."

"Yeah, the amaterasu." Sol nodded, as always feeling dread and strange reluctance to call 'Heavens Radiance' its proper name. "The first time in this life." She barelu avoided blurting out "barely avoided it being the last one."

Akane sighed, then turned to Nabiki. "Don't you dare to blabber this out. I don't want to tempt fate facing the owners of these warehouses. He did probably burn half a district down."

"Rest assured." Nabiki nodded, her expression serious. "If I find a glassed circle a couple hundred meters across I'll pretend to be ignorant. Don't wake the sleeping insurance companies and such... Do you have any other abilities, Ranma-kun? Somehow I don't believe that is all."

"Oneechan!" hissed Akane. "Stop egging him on!"

"Well..." Sol's vanity fought her reluctance to give secrets away. In the end her vanity won. "I also can feel evil... Not as good as some miko but still enough for hunting. Breathe in space. Well, and teleport."

"Teleport?" Nabiki got agitated. "Like in 'instantly transferring yourself to another point of space'?"

"The other Senshi could do that too," Akane tried to cut her husband down to size. "But only as a team."

"That's because their powers haven't fully matured yet," explained Sol. "Only I am powerful enough... Wanna a Martian rock? Solar Teleport!" She disappeared in a bright flash leaving Genma dumbfounded and Kasumi on the verge of a fit of elation.

"Idiot!" Akane barked at the empty space. "We're in trouble and here he's showing off!"

Nabiki glanced at her watch. "Hmm... As far as I remember, light reaches Mars in twelve mi—"

There was a flash. Sol appeared in the room putting a small unimposing rock on the table with a smug "Ta-daaaa!".

"His idiocy is faster than light," Akane quipped with venom.

Nabiki looked at the rock, which started frosting over, then at the grinning Sol and back. "Ranma... Have you any idea what you just did?"

"Well, I got a cool souvenir?" Sol scratched the back of her head. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Akane smacked her husband upside her head. "No, he hasn't got a slightest clue."

"Ranma-kun." Nabiki looked at the red-haired girl with sincere pity. "Did you ever wonder how much NASA and other space agencies would pay you for, say, delivering an itty-bitty space probe at the orbit around Saturn, or Uranus?"

"I ain't a delivery boy," Sol grumbled as she rubbed at the sore spot. "It's enough that I have to work as a battery for the team. Or as an inter-continental taxi."

"You're hopeless." Nabiki hid her face in her palm in a dramatic gesture. "Sending a probe to the outer planets costs in billions. Billions of _dollars_. And then they have to wait for years until the probe arrives there. Would one financially short-sighted offer performing the task for a meager sum of, say... one billion yen, she'd be beating the contractors off with a stick!" She rolled her eyes, her expression dreamy. "Just imagine: never having to work again, anymore. Or building the biggest doujo you could dream of, anywhere - even under the Tokyo tower if you wanted to."

Sol was dumbfounded, her eyes bugging out as she heard about these fantastic sums. Genma's eyes stuck towards his nose, there was an audible ring-a-ding between his ears. Using his most authoritative voice the stocky martial artist barked at her: "Son! You must help the poor rocket scientists who work selflessly on behalf of the progressive mankind!"

"Stop corrupting protectors of love and justice‼！" roared Akane as she hit her father-in-law upside his head with a weighty wooden 1 "And you!" She stared at Nabiki fiercely. "These powers weren't given us for that! Do you know how low one could fall down this road?" She exhaled noisily, then added in a quieter voice: "When I pledged my loyalty to the Princess I swore to stand for Love and Justice." These two words were said with a reverence of the true faith. "Using our magical power for profit would be... Sacrilegious, I think."

"Wait, wait." Nabiki wasn't taken aback, of course — that would stain her reputation forever. "Are you saying you've pledged your loyalty to someone? Like a samurai to a feudal lord?"

"Sailor Moon isn't some feudal lord," Akane corrected her. "She is the Moon Princess, someone who is an example four us all. Nothing could compare to her power of healing purification... Well, maybe her readiness for self-sacrifice.

"Though usually you won't guess it by looking at her," grumbled Sol.

"So you too have pledged your loyalty to her?" asked Nabiki.

Sol contemplated on that. "Not exactly," she finally said. "That girl whom I've been in my former life. She... I... begged the queen many times to make me a Senshi but was always refused. Then... she didn't give up, she managed to reproduce it on her own... Binding her star seed to the star crystal of the sun. But right after that, the enemy attacked..." Sol's voice became duller, her eyes unseeing, looking into the past. "She... I remember little of that life. But its end, I remember. There was a huge, unbeatable space fleet full of demonic power... Nothing could stand against it. I remember me jumping to intercept it. I remember that spell..." She cast her gaze down, looking at her hands. "I wasn't intending to die then, just..." Her voice wavered. "I couldn't risk holding back, hitting too weakly. One life, my one and only, for the lives of everybody at the moon colony, for the lives of my friends..." She shook herself out of her reverie and lifted her hardening gaze at Nabiki. "I guess that was my pledge. The fact that I've been born again is a proof in itself that the queen accepted it. Sorry, Nabiki. I won't earn money this way. Not least because of my respect for the girl who stood unflinching before her greatest hidden fear, to burn alive losing control of her own powers."

The middle sister just snorted in frustration.

Genma cleared his throat, rubbed at the lump on his head, straightened the kerchief covering his baldness. "The way of one devoted to studying martial arts is fraught with peril," he began harshly, in a roundabout way. "But still harsher is the way of samurai... Son, your former life is one thing, but this life is yours and yours alone. Only you are responsible for your decisions. By choosing the way of serving, you shouldered the burden of a samurai. You aren't an independent heir to your family school anymore. Your life now depends on the will of the master you pledged yourself to, that princess of yours. Was your decision a conscious one?"

"Yes," Sol said as soon as she managed to put her jaw back in its place. Pop still can surprise, she thought, I didn't expect such a seriousness of him. "The princess, she... She's probably the one I'd not hesitate to give my life for." Akane made a point of clearing her throat, so Sol hastily added: "Not that I plan to and stuff." She almost blurted out "because the death of her own hits her the hardest" but managed to bite her tongue in time. Some things, like the ability of sailor suited warriors to turn time back were best kept secret: after all, secret identities are one thing but ultimate secret techniques are a different matter.

"That's fine," Nabiki injected coldly, "but you were going to tell us about the todays battle. First, was it really a tentacle demon or did they get that wrong too?"

"No, they didn't." Sol scrunched her face up in disgust. "After that thing, even Kunou looks like a shining example of chivalry. What am I saying? Compared to that, even Happousai looks white and fuzzy. We haven't had an enemy worse that this one. Filthy, tricky - that's on top of being hopelessly, unbeatably powerful."

"Unbeatable, you say?" Genma frowned. "Since when—"

"He broke Happousai," Sol grimly interrupted him. "Made him into a quiet vegetable."

"The Dreaded Master?" both fathers chorused, paling a bit.

"Yes," Akane affirmed, shivering slightly. "I don't know what he did to him, but Grandpa cried and babbled. He didn't even react to anything around him. We... let him lie in a trash can.

"Yeah," added Sol. "He was so miserable and defenseless you didn't even want to punt him."

Souun and Genma replied with shocked stares. For them, it was like a word about the fall of an evil deity.

"Where... Where, did you say, the Dreaded Master is now?" Genma asked with a wary, budding hope.

"In a trash..." Sol began but stopped abruptly, startled when it suddenly dawned on her. "Drats! He was probably sucked in, right after that bastard! There were cars flying, how could a mere trash can withstand..."

Akane threw her hands to her mouth in horror. "So we've just left him there to die?！"

"Nah," Sol placated her. "That one's unkillable. He'll turn up somewhere, be it in our world or in a different one, if not tomorrow then a thousand years later or a thousand years ago... There are them roaches, then there are things you can't get rid of, no matter what. The lasting values."

"What a terrifying power..." Souun whispered in shock. "To break the Master himself... And you've beaten such an enemy!"

"Not as much beaten as tricked," Sol corrected self-critically. "We've been riling him until he went ape-shit, provoked him to waste all his power reserves. He ran out of juice and reverted back into the pathetic human waste he'd been to begin with... But in a straight-on fight he was so unbeatably powerful it's just sickening. The damn stinky cheater."

"Don't belittle your victory." disagreed Genma. "Against such a scum even the dirtiest tricks are fine, fitting even. Against a thing with no honor... You did fine, as only a true heir of the Anything Goes school would."

"Well thanks, pops," grumbled Sol. "But you're right on this one."

"So, the demon was stronger than all the Senshi together?" Nabiki continued her line. "Which means he was stronger than any of your prior enemies?"

"Not exactly," Sol replied. "He just... How to say it... He brought his own cards with him, all packed. He called upon the power of some strange system... like a talking computer or something. And that thingamabob allowed him to shut our magic off, all at once. But that was later, after we killed him the first time."

"Killed the first time?" Nabiki didn't believe she heard that right.

"Well, the bastard played with us at first," explained Sol. "Hid his true power, feigned being a common monster defeatable with magic." Her tone became angry. "Was having his fun. Well, any strikes and ki blasts didn't even scratch the rubbery asshole to begin with, then he raised a barrier deflecting all our magical blasts. Luckily, it was after we finished rescuing all the girls." She grit her teeth. "A good half of them were less than under-age!"

"How did you rescue them if he was that invulnerable?"

"He himself, invulnerable," explained Sol, "the tentacles, not so much. These were easy to rip off. Here, Iris," She pointed at Akane, "pruned him real good."

"Then what, exactly, happened to Mercury?" Nabiki decided to focus on the more interesting matters.

"She got too engrossed in her scanning," Sol explained briefly. "Failed to react when he suddenly jumped at her. He swallowed her instantly. Then he spits a skirt out and says, his mug so satisfied, that most of his tentacles are inside him, an' he's goin to..." Her voice caught from disgust.

"Hmm, I wonder..." drawled Nabiki. "It well fits certain traditions of the hentai manga. Umm... Ah, that's possible. If he was a human it's quite probably he modeled his powers after certain... entertainment media when he transformed himself."

Sol at first blinked, incomprehension written thick on her features. Then she felt sick. "What... what kind of jerk does have to be to find entertaining in such things?" She felt queasy from the thought alone. "Well, I know guys could get pretty wild, some read things where not only boobs spring from each page but everyone acts like no sane girl would... So you say there's more... That's just sick!"

"Be thankful you didn't meet the more... advanced specimens." Nabiki wrinkled her nose but didn't go into further detail. "So Mercury got swallowed. And then?"

"Well, Iris... Akane went berserk," Sol continued, this topic very unpleasant for her. "And jumped right down his gullet. Straight ahead, unthinkingly."

"I felt nauseated from the thought of what was going to happen to Ami-chan," the pale Akane added quietly. "There was no time to think... Then, I don't remember it clearly. I've been tearing tentacles apart, and tearing, and tearing... But there were more and more of them, it was becoming tighter and harder to move... I could only think of one thing: I had to reach Ami-chan... In the end, I couldn't. I had no strength to go further." She went green telling this. "It squeezed me so hard I couldn't move... It started groping... Got under my leotard... I was so scared I couldn't think. Then a flash and I come to... outside... Got a paper bag? I think I'll lose my diner now."

"It's a good thing then that Ranma-kun pulled you out," Nabiki agreed hastily, slightly pale. She cast a quick glance at her father who was becoming redder by a minute. "But how did he manage it?"

"I just jumped into the maw after her," Sol began telling her reluctantly. "Well, I thought: if my magic doesn't work, what technique do I know that is powerful enough to rip the scum apart and could be performed even while immobilized? Well, I remembered the perfected Lion Roar Blast..."

"Wait a minute," Nabiki became concerned. "You could barely perform even the basic form of that technique. As I recall you've managed only a couple times to produce results above a harmless 'pop'. Whatever happens, you're just incapable of reaching the level of negative emotions Ryouga-kun brings out.

"Well, ah," Sol was extremely unwilling to go into details. "No other technique was even remotely suitable... I had to risk, to hope I'd have enough negative emotions. After all, my wife was there. And if that wasn't enough, well, he stank like a cesspool... Then it turned that the taste was even worse..." She scrunched her face up putting her tongue out. "Bleah, it sickens me to just remember that. Well, then I just focused all my delight and joy," Her tone suddenly turned sarcastic, "blasted a perfected Lion Roar Blast right-o in his stomach. Boom, he's a-splatter all across the street." She snorted arrogantly, then asked without any degree of kindness: "That's enough? None of the girls were... We just kept interrupting him. Well, he managed to tear Mercury's skirt off, but that's just really an accessory. Ah, he also squeezed his tentacles under Iris's leotard. She remade it into a bikini herself, what with tearing these out and stuff."

"True..." admitted Akane, her head low. "Then I went half-naked to yell at that damned paparazzi..." She sniffed in self-loathing. "The idiot that I am... And then they mistook me for Mercury again... They always mix us up... So it's all my fault that they now hound Ami-chan..."

"Stop." Nabiki squinted her eyes at the Senshi. "Ranma-kun..." Her piercing gaze burrowed into the other girl. "You were lying just now. Lying unconvincingly, as always. You didn't believe you'd have enough negative emotions for that technique, didn't you? But you went anyway...?"

Sol turned her head up and away, closing her eyes. Her features formed a grimace of pain and disgust. "Damn you, Nabiki. You and your perceptiveness... Yeah, it wasn't enough. More so for a technique I knew only in theory. I counted on... I counted on him raping me... _That_·should have been enough."

"What?！" Akane jerked upright looking at her with horror. "Ranma... But you're a guy... You..."

"For you, I'd go into hell itself," Sol replied not opening her eyes. She jerked her head, still facing the ceiling. "For the others... I don't know if I could've if t'was only Ami. Maybe for the princess... No matter. It started groping. I used my imagination. T'was a fine Sishi Hokou Dan. Didn't have to wait until he really... Enough." Opening her eyes she crossed eyes with Nabiki and the other girl, shocked, averted her eyes. "The interrogation's over?" Sol stated in an icy, demanding voice.

"Yes," Nabiki replied in a hoarse whisper. Then, more firmly: "Thank you, Ranma-kun." She made a deeply formal but sincere bow. "Your care for my little sister is beyond any comparison."

"Then Usagi-chan came," Akane hastily told the rest trying to defuse the tension. "But the demon suddenly gathered back from its chunks, right around her, so she got stuck inside. That was when we learned that he was simply playing with us. We couldn't risk attacking him with magic. He had a hostage inside, untransformed and defenseless. Tuxedo Kamen started throwing his roses, he completely wore himself out, but the demon regenerated any wounds instantly. Then Sailor Moon managed to transform, she hit from inside with her tiara. It broke the barrier and Sol blasted him good burning a big hole. Sailor Moon climbed out—"

"Wasn't that too risky?" Nabiki asked, doubtful.

"We, Sailor Senshi," injected Sol, her voice dull, "are very resilient against fire, lightning and our own magic in general. It's often safer to blast at your comrades than to leave them entangled."

"Not to mention our healing factor," continued Akane. "But the demon beat us even in that. We kept making holes in him but the damage disappeared in seconds. Then he got pissed off for real. He addressed that strange Ahs system and it simply snuffed all our magic out. I didn't think that was even possible! Even the most dangerous enemies of the past couldn't do anything like that..."

Sol continued after her: "In short, me an' Akane were the only two fighters left in a crowd of under-trained girls not even reaching the black belt level. We were lucky the bastard was talking to that system aloud. He gave away that he was burning through his last reserves... All that was left to do was delaying and distracting him until he ran out." She sped up, jumping over many details. She had prodded the fresh wounds enough. Trying to catch Akane, mad from fear and smeared with a highly flammable gunk, with a plenty of potential open fire sources around - that was not fun at all. "Well, his time ran out and the demon melted, leaving the bastard uncovered. We almost finished giving him to the police when it turned out that the portal had a farewell surprise. It started growing, sucking everything in..." She grit her teeth. "That was the most dangerous moment. Nobody knew what to do with it, our magic didn't work - and the hole grew bigger and would have sucked the whole Earth in if it wasn't stopped. How can one beat a black hole?"

"Would've sucked the whole Earth in?" Nabiki managed to stay calm, but barely. Various duels and other skirmishes where they rarely even tried to kill their opponent for real were one thing. Knowing that you barely missed your todays appointment with the Reaper was quite different. "That bastard deserves not just a prison sentence, but hell itself. I hope you didn't let him go?"

"He's probably already there," replied Sol. "He psyched up, tore himself free... The hole sucked him in."

"Good," Nabiki nodded with satisfaction. "But how did Sailor Moon manage to close the portal? Especially if, as you say, magic wasn't working? On the video, you can see as she summons some light then jumps into the abyss. Then comes the next chunk, Ami Mizuno herself is explaning about the random folding of space..."

"Usagi-chan... No, Princess," Akane corrected herself, "She is special. She..."

"I'm home!" came Nodoka's voice from the front door.

Genma's reaction was as instant as it was predictable. His powerful survival instincts kicked in, as always vastly outrunning his thought process. A blink of an eye later he was leaping out of the house holding Sailor Sol tucked under his arm. Well, he tried to. Akane calmly stuck her foot out and the elder martial artist kissed the floor.

"Mother knows," explained Sol as she wrenched herself from his grasp, adding an elbow to the back of his head to get her point across.

"Akane-chan?" Nodoka stopped, taken aback, as she entered. Then she turned to Sailor Sol. "Ah! We are visited by a Sailor Senshi!"

"Our son..." began Genma but Sol interrupted him: "I'm sorry, mom. The secret's out. One arse-hole with a camera sneaked upon us and caught Sailor Moon. The TV reporters went rabid."

"But surely it can't be _that_·bad?" Nodoka frowned, not comprehending.

"The short story, aunty Saotome," Nabiki butted in. "is that we have a grandiose scandal on our hands. They fought a tentacle demon today. The topic itself is slippery, but then my little sis had a... wardrobe malfunction. A paparazzi filmed it and they got everything wrong. They are now telling a 'sensation' about Mercury having been raped. That's Mizuno Ami as far as I know. Now little sis got it in her head that she must make everything right... by calling the shitstorm to herself. Am I right?" She turned to Akane.

"Yes," Akane replied crisply. "It's my fault, so I must correct it." She turned to her father and sisters, bowing to them. "Thank you for listening, you helped me to gather my courage. Now I have to go. While that flock of vultures is still at Ami's house."

"How... How noble!" Nodoka's voice faltered. "You have a wonderful wife, Ranma."

"Hold on, son." grumbled Genma. "You are the sole pillar for her now."

Akane tied a white headband with such determination, with such fire in her eyes, that Ranma felt like shuddering.

Dressed in a short wrap skirt and a loose, long-sleeved jacket, quite similar to Ami's usual attire, with similar bluish-black hair, she looked like a carbon copy of the genius girl. For those who wasn't observant enough, or knew them both or just had a chance to see them side by side.

"Let's go!" she said not looking back.

Genma stood silently, grim and solemn. Nodoka, beside him, looked as if she was seeing them off to a last, suicidal mission.

"Just don't think she'd commit seppuku afterwards," Sol whispered toward them as she grinned lopsidedly, serving the pathos a fatal blow.

"Don't worry," her mother replied with a smile full of reserved humor. "I know you well nowadays. Sailor Moon is a true daughter of the heavens, she brings new traditions and new truths."

Genma bugged his eyes casting a side glance at his wife who suddenly called the magical girls leader with an emperor's title. He didn't dare to say anything, though.

"Well, here I go," Sol said as she ran out after her wife. Her voice reached from the street: "Akane, wait!"

The seers-off stood in silence for a while. Then Nodoka suddenly exclaimed, dreamily and exaltedly: "My daughter is so manly!"

Genma developed a large sweatdrop.

(シーンブレイク)

May 9, 2011. Translated June 3, 2011. Last correction March 18, 2012

**Comments:**

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**1**  
Akane _does_·use a mallet in the canon (manga), several times. But mostly against Genma and only when he deserves it.

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— Pusakuronu


	8. Defeat the Undefeatable

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 8,  
Defeat the Undefeatable: Rule #36**

Ami's house was growing closer. In this part of the city buildings were several stories in height, often of differing enough to make the girls zig-zag around or jump up and down.

"Aren't you going to detransform?» Akane asked Sailor Sol.

"Naw," replied the other girl. "This way, more weight to your words. Besides... They'll figure I'm Ranma sooner or later."

They have almost reached their destination when Sol stopped suddenly. Akane returned back to her and looked down into the narrow space between houses the redhead was peeking into.

"What's the matter?"

Instead of replying Sol slid down, her legs apart, the soles of her sandals braking against the opposite walls slowing her descent. Akane could only follow suit.

Five stories down, there was a pitiful curled up figure sitting on an iron step of an external staircase. It took a moment for Akane to recognize her comrade-in-arms. "Ami-chan!" she gasped out.

The eyes that darted upwards to meet hers were dry, but so harried that her heart twinged.

"Ah, it's you guys." Ami let out a sigh of relief. "I... just decided to sit here, rest a bit."

"So they won't even let you home?" Akane asked balling her hands into fists so hard her knuckles made a popping sound. Sol backed away from her reflexively.

"No-no, it's nothing!" Ami tried to lie, completely unconvincingly. Her strained smile was more suitable for a corpse. "Don't worry about me! I'll just rest here a bit and go home. Honestly."

"Ami-chan," Akane sat down beside her, putting one arm around the other girl's shoulders. "Stop pretending, don't torture yourself. We'll make everything right, you'll see!" She felt that the girl genius was one solid lump of tension and her resolve gained the hardness of a diamond. "We'll go there right now and make everything all right, O'kay?"

"But... how?" Ami's voice was still tense, but there was now rationality in it.

"It's simple," Akane replied smiling gently as she rubbed the other girl's back. "That's me on that tape, right? So we just have to—"

"No!" Ami was horrified. "No-no-no! Akane-chan, they'll... No! Don't! I'll manage somehow! Not you too! It's..." She shuddered as if reliving the experience again.

"Ami-chan," Akane said, her voice full of unbending determination. "I've failed you. I've framed you even if unintentionally. There's my fault in everything that happened to you. And you know what?"

"What?" There was a glimpse of hope in Ami's eyes.

"We, Sailor Senshi, do not abandon our friends in trouble," Akane said quietly but warmly. "Whoever is at fault."

Ami breathed in and out noisily, hiding her head in the other girl's shoulder. "Thank you," she said barely audibly.

Akane started massaging the other girl's shoulders with her free hand.

"Let's bring you home," Sol said as she quickly grew bored watching this "mushy stuff".

"Back there?" Ami shivered, the irrational fear returning. "They... I don't think they'll let us pass."

"Don't sweat it, we'll help you," Sol reassured her. "If they won't give way we'll _move_·them.

"Let's go," Akane said gently pushing the girl genius to stand up. "We two are going there anyway."

"All right." Ami relented. "I don't know what came over me. I'll try to... make it."

The three of them left the cleft-like side alley. They had to go around a whole city block, then turn two times to different streets before they reached Ami's home. The girl had obviously been fleeing blindly like a harried animal.

The crowd of vultures was there. Some were telling something into the cameras, full of themselves. The others were packing to leave. The entrance of the three girls went unnoticed at first. Then, when they were almost at arm's reach, photo flashes went off. TV cameras stared hungrily and the onrushing reporters chattered up a storm drowning each other's voice out.

Ami almost faltered then and there, but Akane squeezed her hand tighter. Sailor Sol hung back, deliberately not noticing the microphones stuck in her face, leaving the two other girls in front. Two similarly-looking, similarly dressed girls with almost identical haircuts. The paparazzi perked up smelling a new sensation.

Akane breathed in, feeling... No, it wasn't fear. More like a tension than felt like her blood pricking her fingers, like the ground falling from under her feet, all sounds distant and muffled.

"I am Tendou Akane, otherwise Sailor Iris! It's me on that indecent tape, not Sailor Mercury! Leave Ami-chan alone, it's me who you need!"

A tense silence fell disturbed only by the sound of camera shutters. Then the crowd of paparazzi exploded with noise. Come on, Akane thought with a tense hope. Go on and believe it. Go on, here I am!

"What a stunning self-sacrifice!" one of the criers started ranting into his camera. "We now witness Tendou Akane trying to cover for Mizuno Ami, to save the face of her violated teamma— Urk!"

"I'm not covering for nobody!" Akane yelled shaking him by the scruff of his neck like a rag. "Got that! It's really me there!"

The cameras and photo flashes turned hungrily, savoring the predicament of their colleague like a pack of jackals chomping down on a weakened one of their own. "Such a determination!" another one started ranting, keeping one eye on the angry girl and clearly posing himself to be her next victim. "Tendou Akane persists in her determination to take her friend's shame for herself!"

Akane let out something between a roar and a growl. Ami has been pushed aside and was instantly lost in the hostile crowd, a pitiful lump of suffering. Akane's fists itched mightily to just pummel them all.

"Mercury's too shy!" Sol hollered covering the din of the crowd. "Mercury'd run away! Only Iris got it to shoo parapazzis so blindly!"

"Nobody asked you!" Akane snapped sending her over the heads of the crowd with a mighty punch.

Sol landed sprawled on her back, her legs apart, her skirt flipped up. Photo flashes went off like crazy. She stood up, groaning and hastily correcting her dress. "See? That girl's a spitfire!"

She wasn't pummeled again only because of the crowd separating them.

A two-second pause was followed by someone from the side ranting loudly: "What an unexpected turn! Before your eyes a shocking truth is revealed: the tentacle demon victim from the notorious tape is not Sailor Mercury! It's Sailor Iris, Tendou Akane in civilian! But what made..."

The rest of them followed suit hastily retelling the hot news and drowning all the sounds in their din.

"Let's go!" Akane plucked Ami out of the crowd and started dragging the other girl behind. "We finally can take you home." She moved through the crowd like a tank and those paparazzi who lacked self-preservation to give her way were quashed into the crowd of their colleagues by the dirty laundry business. The crowd of reporters was noisy, but one could still discern some of their questions, which lead to Akane becoming redder by the second until her eye started twitching violently.

Finally, when they were almost through, one specimen overstepped the last limits agitated as he was in the overall rage that looked more like a feeding frenzy of piranhas: "What were your thoughts when you felt the sticky tentacles all over your nude body?"

Akane stopped dead, turning to glare at him. The crowd fell silent in an enraptured anticipation: Would she hit him? Let it slip? Break his neck...?

"Just try to imagine being pawed by the dirtiest, stinkiest hobo you ever saw!" the girl barked, her face posed at this moment a perfect model for a red oni. Or some other angry-muzzled, buggy-eyed creature. "Maybe you could understand then!" She turned around sharply and went on her way, nearly tearing Ami's arm out as she dragged the other girl behind her.

The automatic glass doors slid open before the two girls. Reporters were ready to rush after them but met an unexpected obstacle. Sailor Sol threw her arms wide. Moving the slight girl in a white red-trimmed seifuku aside proved as impossible as if she was a well entrenched anti-tank barrier.

The more clever ones tried to duck under her arms but they quickly backed off when the girl suddenly erupted with a wave of heat. Sol smirked, her entire body wreathed in a thin layer of bright flame fluttering her miniskirt and her wavy mane of fiery hair. The vultures backed further, squinting. The expenditure of magic was unholy, she wouldn't be able to keep doing that for long. But nobody ever accused Saotome Ranma of inability to bluff.

"What are you doing!" a security guard shouted at her running up from behind her. "You'll start a fire!"

"Oopsie..." Sol hurriedly extinguished her aura glancing sheepishly at the smoking door-frame above her and the footprints her sandals melted in the marble floor.

Vultures renewed their assault, but now there was the security guard standing side to side with Sol, asking them with a perfect politeness whom of tenants they are here to visit. The doorway was effectively sealed shut. The security guard was the politeness itself. Sol stood there stone-faced looking right through the pushy ones, not a hint of reaction to the provocative questions.

Alas, their perfect stand didn't hold long. Akane wasn't done leading Ami to the elevators when the security guard gasped "a tenant!" and hurried to help a well dressed gentleman who got stuck in the paparazzi mass blocking the entrance. They parted reluctantly before the guard who kept apologizing profusely as he led the outraged tenant inside. Sol helped him with unnoticeable but effective moves making the most spry ones to "stumble" and fall onto the ranks of their brethren with the added benefit of pushing them back.

"We are very sorry for the inconvenience!" She bent down in a deep bow.

But the well dressed gentleman wasn't satisfied.

"I demand this outrage reported to the owner! Immediately!" He cast a despising look at the disheveled Ami. "The lowly behavior of some tenants attracting tabloid reporters with their harlotry is a problem of everyone living here. I dare to hope it won't be left without consequences!" He turned around and walked away to the elevators, still fuming with righteousness.

"Rest assured the measures will most assuredly be taken!" The guard bent low in a subservient bow towards his back while Sol held the doors manually turning around the paparazzi pushing into the hall.

The displeased gentleman was barely out of sight when a next person arrived. This time it was a girl, seemingly an university student. The vultures shifted their aim at her, utterly confusing her with a hailstorm of idiotic questions. Sol had to nearly carry her inside, the girl couldn't stand straight as she broke under the sudden onslaught. Akane and Ami managed to calm her somehow and insert her into the elevator. They let out a sigh of relief when elevator doors closed.

"Something is wrong," Ami found strength to note. She leaned her back against the wall as they waited for the next elevator.

"Of course it is!" Akane snorted with a fierce expression. "They lost last shreds of their shame and conscience, jumping people like that!"

"I was thinking about this," Ami carried on, resuscitating gradually. "Such a behavior is too much even for paparazzi. It's out of their character... It's like they are possessed by something that made them to become careless. Maybe they are under influence of evil energy diluted enough to act subconsciously?"

"They gathered into a pack big enough, that's why!" Akane retorted sharply. "Don't go inventing excuses!" As she joined the team late she didn't meet the earlier enemies who used at times really treacherous, covert schemes to influence minds of many people unnoticed.

"Still, I think that—"

The elevator doors opened. But instead of the expected empty car they revealed a middle-aged woman whose brutal facial expression sharply contrasted with her respectable but pointedly modest attire. The lady glared briefly at the girls — so fiercely it made them freeze — on her way towards the entrance. Unceremoniously pushing the security guard aside she stepped out. Sol peeked after her watching if someone tries to get through.

The noise outside increased, there were shrill notes of the lady's voice in it.

"That's the mother of that prissy girl!" Sol whispered loudly making her palms into a speaking-trumpet so that the girls at the elevators could hear her. The elevator doors closed.

A couple of meaty whacks sounded from the outside. The redhead winced. The angry mother returned into the hall, not even aware of a large ki mallet of Righteous Vengeance in her hand. The construct was already evaporating in bluish wisps. The crowd behind her back went into feeding frenzy closing over their fallen brethren.

"You!" the woman half-hissed half-growled as she stopped in front of Ami.

"What could I—" the girl began, intimidated by the burning glare of the woman looming over her.

Akane tensed, frozen in place by contradictions in her mindset and reflexes telling her to act on two opposite impulses, now!

Ami's head whipped sideways from a powerful slap.

"You filthy harlot!" the enraged mother hissed with despise and hate.

"No!" Akane jumped in. "It's not like—"

"Do you even understand," the woman continued ignoring her completely, "what my daughter had to go through because of you?"

Ami shrunk into herself.

"Wait a minute—" Akane hastily pushed in between them covering her friend with herself and taking the brunt of the woman's despising glare. She faltered for a moment and took an involuntary step back. Akane, with her generally helpful and justice-loving attitude, haven't yet a chance to experience a full-blown righteous anger aimed a her personally.

"You two," the mother of the unfortunate university student continued as she regained her composure. Which, alas, haven't lessened the amount of venom in her voice. "Have you ever thought that perhaps your depravity could hurt people who live around you?" She flashed an angry glance at Ami who stood shrunk behind Akane. "Of course you haven't! People like you never make an effort to think of consequences. But this time, you will remember. I'll make sure of it. For my daughter's trauma—"

"What about _my_·daughter's trauma?" Mizuno Saeko interrupted her with cold politeness as she approached from behind, unnoticed. "I dare to assure you, she was hit much harder. But do you see us running around hysterically, blaming everyone convenient?"

Two mothers crossed their glares. A spark flashed in the air between them.

"I don't know what you got yourselves into," the university student's mother said coldly as she looked aside. "Neither have I desire to know, But that disgusting crowd at the entrance is a fact you cannot hide from. Don't bring your family problems into the building where others live. I don't wear myself our working hard for a high class elite apartment just for you to turn it into a common rabble-hole." Finishing on this indignant note, she turned around quickly disappear behind the elevator doors. The car went up.

"How are you?" Saeko turned to Ami. These simple words carried such a load of worry, love and compassion it was beyond description.

"I..." Ami's voice faltered under the burden of guilt. "Now you are in danger, because of me. I'm so sorry—"

"Don't blame yourself," her mother interrupted as she hugged the girl. Ami tucked her face in her mother's shoulder: at sixteen she had almost caught up in height. "What happened, happened. You shouldn't waste so much effort worrying about things you cannot change."

Ami sniffed quietly, but that was all.

"So, how are you holding up?" Saeko asked pulling her daughter away a bit to take a look at her.

"I... I'm fine." Ami tried to avoid the question.

"She holds up wonderfully," Akane replied instead trying to cheer her friend up. "Everything keeps piling against her but she doesn't give up, doesn't despond. She braves it all.

"Me...?" Ami stared at her in confusion. It looked like the shy girl just realized for the first time everything that happened to her. "You are... right?" Her features reflected concentration and doubt.

"Incoming!" Sol hissed from the entrance heralding the approach of a new person.

The man, thirty-something, looked as sleek and weaselly as a middle-manager could ever get. He intruded smoothly seeping fake politeness: "Mizuno-san, I presume?"

"Yes, it's me. How could I help you?" Saeko inquired with cold politeness as she instinctively felt a catch here. She turned around to face the newcomer, standing in such a way that she partly obstructed her daughter.

"You see, Mizuno-sensei," the man began smooth-talking. "It's a great shame but, unfortunately, I have bad news for you. In the light of recently discovered facts," He cast a displeased glance at the paparazzi vaguely visible beyond the glass doors. "we will most probably have to rescind your rent contract. I am very sorry, but the threat to the tenants' peace and well-being, as well as the repercussions the reputation of our tenement would likely suffer—"

"In short," Saeko interrupted him, "you decided to throw us out. To avoid inconveniencing yourself."

"How could you!" Akane sputtered in outrage. "Do you even know how much Ami did for you!"

"Of course I know," the man replied without batting an eye. He then proceeded pulling out a calculator. "The expected losses — which grossly outweigh your rent I shall note — total at..." And he proceeded describing, in a great mathematical detail, the financial abyss of fire and brimstone the owner would be cast unto by the continued presence of the Mizunos.

Sailor Sol's fists itched. Alas, it never works with this ilk. The Mizunos still have to live here. She regretted of not pestering the old ghoul enough to make her share some pressure point techniques: sleeping and paralyzing ones would... No, that was wishful thinking. It wouldn't help. Knock such one today, he'll creep back tomorrow. Pack him and mail him to Thailand, another one will appear in his place. Gosh, it's so much easier dealing with demons!

She was distracted by the noise outside first rising, then calming down. Something was happening there. Sol narrowed her eyes focusing most of her attention on the entrance. So she was the only one to notice as the security guard shifted aside with a bow, letting pass a nondescript old man of quite a short stature walking in with a cane. Still there was something in his wrinkled face telling "don't screw with me". Didn't look like a yakuza, though. More like a relic of times much more simple and brutal.

The old man was followed by a strong-arm man almost as wide as he was high, dressed in a spotless suit. This one was gliding like a swan across a calm lake, quiet and nigh unnoticeable. The more impressive, considering he didn't use any ki techniques. Sol thought of him condescendingly at first: she'd be able to wipe floor with him either way, a ton of muscles or not. Then she took notice of his stony face. A perfect stony face, unflinching and imperturbable. She felt a burning envy rising: her own poker face was barely good enough to fool a five-year-old. She had to do something about this! To invent some new training method or stuff.

The old man meanwhile walked up to the manager. After listening to his spiel a bit he said quietly: "You shouldn't do that, Daisuke-kun." The steel in his voice was well hidden.

"Ah... Owner!" The sleek one jumped up in surprise. "But the losses...! These would be enormous! Many tenants will want to move! And that's not counting the damage to our reputation alone—"

The older man only glared at him briefly, it was enough for the manager shut up instantly. "Daisuke-kun is such a spry boy," he noted softly turning to address either empty space around or his burly companion. "But the very idea of gratitude is so beyond his grasp..." These words were accentuated by a fleetingly brief glance at the manager who caught on the subtext and swallowed nervously. "Tell me, my dear child" he went on, addressing Ami in a kindly grandfather voice. "Those villains you battled — what did they want?"

"Usually," Ami started somewhat awkwardly, "usually behind these groups there was some or other demonic entity intent of devouring all life on this planet..." She paused, then continued thinking aloud: "The minions themselves usually proclaimed they wanted to plunge the world into darkness, but there was always something... hungry behind them." She shivered involuntarily.

"They wanted to gobble the mankind whole, that's what," Sailor Sol injected opinionatedly.

"You see?" the old man said in a deceptively-kind tone as he half-turned towards the manager. "Our bones would be dissolving now at the bottom of someone's stomach. And here you are, with your idea of throwing them out." He turned to his bodyguard with a deliberate slowness. "Shall we go? My old bones are aching." It was hard to tell if the groaning tones in his voice were a play. "Live in peace," were his parting words to the mother and daughter. "If he bothers you again, just let me know."

And he trudged towards the exit, putting much of his weight to his cane, followed by a softly moving burly man in a spotless suit.

The manager stood there is stunned silence, wiping sweat off. For whole five seconds. Then he caught up to his master swiftly, and started pestering him with a detailed business plan of minimizing the losses that he have already devised on the fly.

"A badass grandpa," Sol summarized in a hushed voice. "I wouldn't want to cross eyes with him, even if he haven't got any real power."

Akane nodded silently. Now she saw it: everything was still right with the world. People still had understanding and gratitude. Just not every one of them.

(シーンブレイク)

"That's your problem, Jirou-kun," Nabiki berated into he receiver as she berated herself for an umpteenth time for being too stingy to replace their archaic phone with a wireless. "Parents notwithstanding, you _will_·record the 70th cable channel for me. Of course if you wish to keep that debt out of purely sentimental values, I'll understand... Yes? A good boy."

She hung and went to peek into the family room to make sure the video tape recorder recorded what it should, what with some panda's stupid habit of flipping channels when there's no one near the TV. As she returned to the phone, the middle Tendou typed in another number. Who would have thought that such a simple necessity as recording several channels at once would require a large-scale operation requiring incessant supervising. Nabiki was running non-stop like a hamster in its wheel. She'll get calluses on her finger soon with all these calls. Her army of volunteers — so to speak — demanded a watchful eye.

"Minori-chan," she began in a false-honeyed voice, "how the recording is— What?！" Nabiki's voice gained steel. "Listen here. I don't care if you are simply crook-handed or it were mice that gnawed through your cable. You'll record this, or else. Did I make myself clear?" Her voice was again deceptively friendly. "Good to hear it. You could hold the cable ends with your teeth if you have to."

Nabiki hung with a sigh. "What an incompetence. They can't even manage such a simple thing as recording video." She frowned, listening. There were definitely sounds of a classical music reaching from the family room. "Uncle Saotome, if you switched the channel again!" She hurried into the family room. Lo and behold: the TV was showing the "Swan Lake" ballet There were no signs of a panda but that meant nothing, with his ability to disappear into the thin air. The girl snorted indignantly as she grabbed the remote switching the channel... To the same "Swan Lake"? Nabiki didn't want to believe her eyes but the green number in the corner of the screen told her better than any words: yes, it was the same channel she had been recording, formerly full of dirty insinuations about her little sis.

"What the hell?"

Nabiki flipped through the few channels that posed interest to her, the channels that translated the fake sensation about Mercury. Some had the same ballet on them, others simply shut down filling the screen with static. Only one channel still held, the most odious one, still disgorging torrents of gilded crap. While she tried to figure what is going on, it suddenly switched to the same ballet.

"It seems I can kiss my profit goodbye," the middle Tendou summed up philosophically. She felt somehow... chilly. It seems she boldly ventured into a pool inhabited by not just big but _really_·big fish. So big in fact, that even the proverbial freedom of press was bite-sized for them.

(シーンブレイク)

The line of people was long and serpentine, it stretched back to the street then up the hill reaching the bus stop. An imposing gentleman in a deceptively simple business suit stepped out to the sidewalk. He glanced around, then dismissed his driver with a hand wave. There were no free parking spots: the mini-sidestreet leading to the stairs was packed with people, the sidewalks of the two-lane street framed with metal safety barriers, and even the bus stop was fenced-off with handrails that had narrow gaps matching bus doors. He was used to it, though. He came here once each year, for many years now. But today's visit was an unplanned and unexpected one.

Hino Takashi walked up to the base of the stairs. He stood there for a moment, looking at the waiting-line laden steps. Then he started climbing the steep stairs leading up the hill. The waiting line occupied only a part of wide steps leaving a plenty of room to pass the rare people going down. No one paid attention to him: if someone bypasses the line it means they should. As he reached the top he saw that his premonition did not mislead him. There was no sense in coming through the back gate today.

The waiting line curved to the left, towards the small shop from which they sell protective charms, fortune telling tickets and the like. After satisfying their curiosity the visitors were moving to the main shrine with its donation box. The bells on the ceremonial red-and-white rope were strumming almost non-stop: there were a lot more visitors today than the shrine received during an average holiday.

He walked up to the shop. Beyond its widely open window there knelt a raven-haired girl in a red-and-white dress. But it wasn't a miko garb. And the girl looked unfamiliar. But at the same time...

"Rei?" Takashi asked with hesitation. He wasn't ready to something like this.

The seifuku-clad beauty didn't reply right away. She first finished dealing with the current buyers and said her good byes to them while reminding them — somewhat forcibly — that they can make a donation. Only then did she turn to him pricking him with a hostile look. That look was so familiar it dispelled the illusion instantly, leaving a shadow of wonder: how did he fail to recognize his own daughter? That, and a familiar, deep-rooted bitterness: no, she shill haven't forgiven him.

"Yuichiro!" Sailor Mars barked, then cast another look at the father. The girl sat eye-to-eye with him, thanks to the high floor of the small house and the pillow under her knees. He made a wan, barely noticeable smile. She turned away, with the same harshness directing a nominally polite welcome at the next visitors. There was some irony in the way her white leotard and red pleated skirt mirrored the traditional white kimono and red pleated pants of a miko. Of course miko don't wear golden tiaras and gloves reaching their elbows. Nor they wear high-heeled shoes, especially indoors.

The father's contemplation — as well as the rapid emptying of cardboard boxes full of factory-made amulets — was interrupted by entrance of an shaggy, unshaven person wearing a white kimono and light-blue hakama.

"Yuichiro, how long should I wait for you!" Mars berated the newcomer unfairly. "Cover for me!"

"It will be done... Er.. Mars-san," he replied timidly as he took her place at the window, to the thoroughly hidden disappointment of the waiting line.

Mars pulled at her skirt as she stood up. Which didn't help much, considering that she was almost a meter above the ground the visitors stood on. She went towards the exit.

Takashi was weighed down with conflicting emotions as he walked around the little shop. At the back there was Rei waiting for him, already clad in her usual miko garb, her arms crossed.

"Let's take a walk... Away from the prying ears?" the father suggested gesturing towards the deeper part of the park.

The recalcitrant daughter just hmph-ed in reply but none the less she followed the suggestion. They walked between trees in heavy silence until the central square disappeared from view.

"And so you came," Rei stated as she stopped and turned sharply towards him.

"Rei, I—"

"Like those, who came to gawk?" The girl continued, not listening. She was deliberately winding herself up. "To watch me like a circus seal? No, wait, let me guess. Someone got a wonderful idea: let's use Sailor Mars as a banner! To attract followers by the very fact of our kinship! Am I right?

"You partly are," Takashi admitted suddenly, throwing her off-balance so that she lost all the prepared vitriol. "You are probably unaware yet, but... There's a great wind rising. A wind that is already making waves. Those dirty laundry diggers, they... awoke something in our people's soul. The movement in support of the Sailor-suited warriors emerges everywhere. It's spontaneous, but it won't stay that way for long.

"And you, of course, decided to catch that wind?" Rei inquired with the same causticity but without fire.

"Oh, I didn't have to decide," the father replied throwing her off-balance again. "When you are caught in a hurricane without a mite of control - you either move with it or are ground to dust. Or did you think," he asked with irony, "that the sudden discovery that I am a relative of Sailor Mars wouldn't affect my status quo?"

Rei had to admit it to herself: she haven't looked at the problem from that angle. Takashi suddenly gained a new weight... And new vulnerable spots to hit for the snakes in the pit he chose to dwell in. If he doesn't give support to the sailor-suited warriors now, when they are on the peak of popularity and compassion, he will pose himself a soulless careerist who just doesn't care. That would ruin the work for which he sacrificed everything, even the family happiness. Rei bristled habitually at this thought. But if he _does_·give his support, he'll never clean himself up from the accusations of nepotism and cheap populism. He was caught between hammer and anvil, she wouldn't wish this to an enemy!

She tried to hold onto her deep-rooted antipathy towards her father. But she came to a shocking realization that it was slipping, replaced with understanding and symphaty.

After all, she too could not hope to escape this cup. One day Usagi will take the mantle of a queen, with all the involvement in the world politics it entitles. And the position of the praetorian guard, the factual purpose of the Senshi... Too close to hope to sit it out on sidelines.

"I see." She nodded while outwardly remaining coldly-calm. "As I understand it, you want to offer some solution?"

"Yes." The father pricked her with a piercing glance making her doubt the effectiveness of her calm facade. "If you grab the initiative now, while the movement is still forming... If, let's assume, Sailor Moon makes a speech calling for peace and civil peace... Right now while the wave haven't turned into a flood yet..."

"Then we can avoid perturbations?" Rei finished for him, unsure. She felt herself a hundred years too young to play these games.

"Perturbations," the father agreed. The mask that was almost one with his face faltered for short moment exposing someone tired and somehow perplexed. "If not something worse. There were protesters spotted armed with... Nobody knows where they got so many pitchforks and torches in the middle of a modern city, but the calls to burn hentai 'sleazes' and paparazzi at the stake couldn't lead to anything good. The parliament is already starting to react. Anyone sensible or just having a well trained self-preservation instinct who has some sort of unofficial leverage is now using it to... influence the most outstanding media channels and newspapers. I wouldn't want to be in place of the department heads now. Especially the police and media departments.

"Oh." Rei had nothing to reply to that. She of course heard some vague things about corruption in the government. But seeing the said corruption about to crash onto those who wronged you like a ton of bricks... It left mixed feelings. "What should I do?"

"Contact Sailor Moon. The sooner the better. There's a TV studio reserved for you, my colleagues pulled a couple strings. Relay the situation to her and—"

"All right," Rei agreed already pulling the communicator out of her pocket. Then she suddenly asked: "You've organized the TV studio but are nominally uninvolved... Is that the razor edge between the callous indifference and the sycophant populism?"

"Exactly," her father laughed dryly and awkwardly, like he was long unused to such an expression of his feelings. "You're growing, my daughter. And it seems you took after me." The latter was said with a smile, and maybe as a joke, but also with a hidden pride. It caused very mixed feelings in Rei.

(シーンブレイク)

There was a dust cloud rising over the yard of the Furinkan high school in Nerima. Brooms, frying pans and other handy objects flickered through the dust cloud.

The wallflower girls from the home education and stitching clubs were beating the stupidity — as well as the living daylights — out of the members of the judo club and the chemistry club.

In the beginning, as it usually goes, there was a word. A word carelessly uttered by one of the "male chauvinistic pigs" currently crying, pleading for mercy and trying in vain to cover themselves with their arms as thick as an unbuffed classmate's leg. Dust was rising up to the sky, the righteous wrath giving remarkable strength to the thin girl hands.

The scrawny and pimply chemistry nerds were far from innocent victims. After all, hey had their own discussion, no less outrageous to the girl ears. The comment from the judo jocks just made them raise their voices over the safe threshold.

However impressive this beat-down was, it was tame compared to what could have happened weren't it for the end of a short school day. There were only members of a few clubs present. The scale of the disaster that would transpire if this happened when the school was full... It was too scary to even think about. But think about it the principal did, his back pressed against the doors. From the inside. His attempt to go out and discipline them ended with the girls stopping for a second and _looking_·at him. The palm tree on the principal's head was still standing upright, along with his hair.

When the event was about to end, the girls growing tired, Happousai appeared on the fence. He was worn, rumpled but still alive. The old man clearly wasn't in right mind: his eyes were looking in different directions and his expression was wistfully-serene. As he looked around the scene of beat-down and listened to the weakening cries for help, the grandpa felt moved, so he uttered a heartfelt haiku about the harsh share of men...

Everyone froze. A dead, ominous silence hung over the schoolyard.

"It's him!" someone of the girls exclaimed. "The pervert!"

Happousai was so moved he didn't even notice the threat until he was yanked down from the fence. Then the merciless lynching mob closed over him.

(シーンブレイク)

"Brrr!" Ranko shivered.

"What's wrong?" asked Akane.

"I dunno," the redhead replied shrugging. "It suddenly felt like something ugly crawled back out again.(note 2)

(シーンブレイク)

"No!" Makoto cried out in a blind panic. "Not the flowers!"

She immediately regretted her words. Minako, barely out of her gloom, wilted again with a look of a kicked dog.

"I'm... I'm just saying," the tall brunette tried to correct herself with a nervous haste, "You could... err..." She fell silent, unable to think of something safe for her friend to do. Or at least of something she wouldn't miss too much.

A hour. The blonde itching with desire to repay for her kindness spent just a hour in her home. But already Makoto's tiny, formerly tidy apartment resembled a pigsty after a bombardment.

Nauseating stench of something burnt reached from the kitchen despite the tightly closed door. She didn't want to think of what lay beyond that door. The curtain torn down together with the curtain-rod spilled on the floor mixing with the earth from the broken flower pots. Dust hung in the air slowly subsiding on everything, the burst shell of vacuum cleaner still smoking. The cupboard yawned with shards of broken glass, spilling its books onto the floor.

Minako had been becoming more desperate with each destroyed thing, with each intentional damage. The results of her trying to make things right were becoming more terrifying with each attempt.

Makoto was starting to have very sinful thoughts. She thought she understood Minako's mother who threw this devastating disaster out. She thought she could feel compassion to the woman who went nuts, apeshit and off the deep end. Because there was a solid reason to.

Makoto shook her head chasing the treacherous thoughts away. No, she cannot! She won't give up, she will support her friend, save the girl from the maw of depression...

Hastily seizing a bucket full of diluted chlorine the blond was about to use for watering her painstakingly grown flowers, Makoto tried again to find an occupation for her friend that wouldn't invoke a risk of irreparable damage. Should she send her to scrub the burnt gunk off the stove? The tall girl cast a sidelong glance at the kitchen door. A vision suddenly appeared before her eyes: a pile of rubble starts shifting, a chunk of tiled roof slides aside revealing a soot-covered Minako, a brush in her left hand, a broken gas burner in her right... No way. Makoto shuddered. The vision was definitely prophetic. Anything but letting her into the kitchen again!

Meanwhile Minako wilted completely, even her shoulders drooping. I have to do something! Makoto thought frantically.

Luckily, the vicious circle was broken by a communicator signal.

"Guys, run to the TV studio at once!" the voice of Mars reached them. Judging by the sky-scape jumping madly on the screen she was roof-hopping already. "Sailor Moon will be making a speech!"

It took all of Makoto's willpower to hold back a sigh of immense relief.

(シーンブレイク)

"That's one mighty crowd!" Venus noted as she looked at the array of screens displaying the pictures from various field teams. The most impressive one was a panoramic view of some street fully packed with people. "And all of that just to support us? But why do they carry pitchforks?"

"To stick them in any paparazzi they'd happen around!" a frantic technician replied from his console. "Team 17, it's the studio! They are flanking you! Retreat into the side-street to your right, the other end is still free." He turned to Venus. "All reporter teams are in danger now. Nobody knows what would provoke them!"

"They are really going to lynch all the paparazzi?" Sailor Moon asked worriedly as she walked up to them from where she was about to begin her speech.

"That's not the worst," Sailor Neptune was quick to 'reassure' her as she pointed at another screen displaying a different crowd, this one consisting of girls only. "For instance, the girls here are ready to beat on any 'perverts'. The catch is whom they would consider as such..."

"It's like a Great Tsunderean Uprising!" Sailor Venus exclaimed with an uncalled for enthusiasm.

The column of defenders of the sailor-suited warriors — which consisted mostly of men from twenty to forty, but also included a number of unsightly looking otaku — meanwhile met the march of persons young and female, their eyes burning with holy indignation, their motto "a good pervert is a dead pervert". Tension quickly developed between the two columns and it wasn't just because the street was a bit too narrow for both.

"The horror," Sailor Sol commented as she shivered looking at the screen. "A death march. Ain't that a good thing I'm not a guy?" She cast a side glance at her wife but the other girl didn't appreciate the joke, she was frowning grimly.

Someone who manned one of the cameras switched to a close-up and it became apparent that the tsundere mass approaches its boiling point, a mere sight of an occasional otaku riling them up.

"We must stop this!" Sailor Moon exclaimed in agitation. She promptly forgot the speech she was rehearsing in her mind not long ago. "But which words should I—"

"Go," Mars pushed her towards the platform backed with a green curtain. "Try something. They'll record your speech first, so you can have an another attempt if necessary."

The blond Senshi took the microphone glancing uncertainly at her comrades hanging beside the screens array. From this position she could see only one screen that displayed her like a mirror. "Err, This is pretty soldier Sailor Moon," she began a bit awkwardly. "Let's not overdo it, all right? I mean, disturbing the peace of the heroic protectors of love and justice, asking them questions that would make your ears fall off, that would make even a hardened dock worker blush... It's of course unforgivable! But! It's not _that_·unforgivable. Let's not start a war, all right?" The last words were said in an almost pleading tone. Then she gained momentum continuing with her usual energy and enthusiasm: "We all make mistakes from time to time and have to stay a whole period in the corridor. At times we make terrible mistakes... Like 20 for an English test..." Her voice trembled a bit as she remembered what her mom have told her back then. "But everyone must be given a chance for forgiveness."

"That's right!" Venus injected as she pushed into the view. "Even to the monsters we first offer to give up and stop their evildoings!"

"They never listen, though," Jupiter added as she approached from the other side. "But that's their choice."

"Anyhow!" Sailor moon grabbed the initiative with the word she always used to return her derailed speech to the track after losing her way in the dense wording. (note 3) "No one should be beaten for just having some measure of darkness that found a way into their hearts! Everyone should be given a chance to repent. She then remembered beryl and added: "Except the vilest villains who committed a truly monstrous villainy!"

"Like trying to sell me to a brothel in Hong-Kong," Sol blurted out absent-mindedly from the sidelines.(note 4)

Girls fell silent casting worried side glances at her like she suddenly grew a second head. Sailor Moon hoped frantically that the microphone didn't catch that. They had enough of dubious fame as it was, by defeating a tentacle demon, thank you very much!

Iris stepped on her husband's foot so brutally that the floor developed a web of cracks and the redhead cringed.

"Err," Sailor Moon continued. "So let's let it go in peace. Let's forgive each other...! But let's not forget that the today's battle is umm..." She fumbled unable to put the awkward topic into words.

"Is not an occasion for erotic fantasies!" Venus snatched the microphone from her hands, to everyone's horror. "What happened today was ugly and sad. Sailor Venus, the warrior of Love says: to love means to bring joy and happiness... To protect the one you love and care for them. That sorry excuse for a human being who was the essence of today's demon..." She bowed her head down continuing in a sorrowful tone: "He had no idea what love is. He probably died without knowing it even once..." She lifted her head again looking into the camera, her eyes inspired and sincere. "Remember! It's not having tentacles or not that matters. It's how you treat each other!" the blond finished on a heartfelt note.

"Minako-chan..." Jupiter groaned from the side, face-palming. "Did you even listen to what you were saying?"

"The educational effect is ruined," Mercury agreed with a sigh. She was blushing visibly out of shame for her friend.

"A couple more words," Sailor Sol said as she suddenly stepped forward plucking the microphone from the blond's hand. "For those _artists_·who draw all these hentai doujinshi." She looked into the camera with such a fiery fierceness that the cameraman stumbled away from the controls, the picture swaying a bit. "The today's monster was your doing. When he was transforming himself from a man into a thing, it was your doodles that gave him inspiration. It were your ideas that showed him the way!" She moved closer as she burrowed her gaze into the camera, so fast she momentarily fell out of focus. "It's your fault, you lolicons, that several _kids_·barely escaped mutilation today!" She made a step back and finished more calmly: "You didn't think your tacky fantasies could gain flesh. But in the world we live in, there's nothing impossible." Her tone became absently philosophic. "Sometimes an idea turns out more substantial than the material things. Our magic is a proof." She snapped her fingers lighting a tiny petal of flame in her palm. "Don't forget it. Every time you give yourself to the darkness, even in the depth of your own mind, you pave the darkness a way to reality..." She stood in silence for a moment, then bowed deeply. "I apologize to those who weren't targets of this outburst." She handed the microphone to a studio worker and the cameraman shut the camera off.

"Ranma, you..." Iris had no words. "I didn't think you could be so... philosophic."

"Ah," the redhead shrugged. "I wonder myself where that came from. Probably caught it from Pops. You see, I just couldn't stay silent, it was burning me from inside. Well, I told the right thing, didn't I?"

"Right," agreed Neptune. "Everything you did was right, except those children you just made into stuttering wrecks."

"I what? I didn't..."

"The look in your eyes was scorching and terrifying!" Venus added with fervor. "Would you believe I thought there's no thing scarier than angry Mars?"

"Hey," Mars objected tokenistically.

"Well, I, err, didn't mean to?" Sol tried to make an innocent face. But it didn't came out too convincing.

Meanwhile the TV studio team was deciding what to do with the footage.

"So?" the cutter asked the chief editor. "I'm cutting this out?"

"On one hand, this material is really radical," the graying man in glasses agreed. "Even fraught with a witch-hunt. On the other hand... Ah, the hell with them perverts, they asked for it. We're leaving it!"

"Are you sure?" asked the cutter. "Higher-ups would not like this."

"We'll survive," the chief editor retorted sharply. "In times like this, it won't stand out... I have a daughter too." He clenched his teeth, his features suddenly fierce, and his glasses flashed ominously with reflected light. "Let the perverts get what they deserve. Just post-process the picture a bit, remove the camera shaking as possible."

"I'll do," the cutter said with a relief that he could turn to familiar topics. "If I scale it up a bit here..."

(シーンブレイク)

The evening panorama of the endless city stretched beyond the parapet like a sea of blurred lights shining through the deepening darkness and the cold, nasty drizzle. The sailor suited warriors hid under the base of a huge advertising board on a roof of some building a couple blocks away from the TV studio.

"It's unfair, depriving us of a comfortable place for gatherings!" Venus grumbled cutely.

"What would I tell my parents if there's still a crowd of fans around our house?" Sailor Moon said with melancholy. "Who would think being a celebrity is such a burden?"

"I still have to analyze so many things," Mercury let out a frustrated sigh. "All this Bacchanalia cost us many hours. Now the traces went cold, how many parameters are lost forever?"

"What's to analyze there? We won!" Venus disagreed a bit too hastily as she probed the sodden bow in her hair with displeasure. "Let's go while we haven't yet turned into wet chicken."

She attracted side glances. A disapproving one from Uranus and a suspicious one from Sol.

"What do you propose?" Sailor Moon injected hastily to curb the potential conflict in her team.

"I'll contact the military," Mercury replied while absent-mindedly picking in her computer. "There should be some hardware left at that underground base that could be of great help in investigating subspace anomalies..."

"It's that bad?" Jupiter asked, frowning.

"The enemy is killed," said Sol. "But there's still that unknown thing able to snuff our magic out like a candle. Will you sleep easily knowing it's still around and nobody knows what to expect of it?"

"No," Jupiter agreed, "I won't."

"That's enough!" Iris berated her spouse. "Just listen to yourself. It's paranoia!"

"It may be," Neptune interrupted her. "But by mirror is still blind. Too much for a coincidence, don't you think?"

"It's really that bad?" Iris asked quietly.

"Oh come on! We won!" Venus exclaimed with a strained, somewhat even hysterical airiness. "What could happen?"

(シーンブレイク)

Somewhere in a timeless subspace an ordered infinity was gathering energy preparing to absorb one more universe, to rewrite its essence, to replace its laws with its own, to replace living fundamentals with a mechanical logic — and make that universe a part of itself, adding one more small part to the greater whole.

What would happen to the evolution of life, to the sapient creatures inhabiting that universe, what would the price be... There was no one to think of that. The ordered infinity wasn't sapient. It didn't even have a decision-making center. The process of preparing for absorption started in all its continuity all at once, uniformly — a simple reaction to a simple catalyst. It was, in fact, just another physical law acting uniformly everywhere just like gravitation or electromagnetism. Soon the accumulated energy will surpass a threshold and the absorption will commence — erasing fates, depriving of future, condemning to an aimless life devoid of a greater goal.

Just like in the normal multiverses, there were fluctuations in the fabric of the ordered infinity — a few sapient beings still clinging to life on their ruined planets. But there, these fluctuations' influence, their ability to rehash the universal laws, was encased in unbreakable limits. Somewhere the free zone was wider, somewhere narrower, but everywhere the sapient life was doomed to fail in following its purpose, its reason to exist. There was a line drawn at evolution.

The entity had a legion of living servants. Not out of malice or even design, but out of a simple pattern: it takes a lot less energy to influence a few atoms in someone's brain than to alter the physical reality directly. So like water seeking an inclined path, like electrical current seeking a conduit, the entity acted through its puppets who more often than not deemed themselves its masters. This way, the energy expedient was decreased by magnitudes. There was no mind to realize that the amount of it available would allow to erase and recreate whole universes at a whim.

Rarely, once in an eternity, some few and far between of these puppets grew dimly aware of the real state of things. Even rarer still, some rebelled in the limited ways available for them. One such a puppet, a hive-mind called Anti-spirals, challenged heroes time and again until some succeeded destroying it. They weren't even aware that in doing so they tore a large chunk of cosmos, a whole galactic super-cluster, out of the fabric of the entity.(note 5)

But that was only once, in a universe that wasn't bound as tightly, the sheer amount of sapient life forms making it one big fluctuation waiting to break away.

What could Sailor Senshi put against this impersonal force that could compare to the unimaginable badassery of those epic heroes and their humongous mecha bigger than sky?

(シーンブレイク)

November 13, 2011. Last edited March 18, 2012.

**Author's notes:**

**1**  
An insider joke only oldfags like me would get. In the event of any unrest all the soviet TV channels switched to showing the aforementioned ballet in an endless loop.  
Why would _Japanese_·channels pick the same, I got no idea. Maybe there was someone with a sense of humor in the department that was shutting them down.

**2**  
There are lasing values.  
I've warned ya.

— auth.

**3**  
"Anyway" — "tonikaku" (とにかく). One of Sailor Moon's distinctive words, just like "Honestly!" (moo) is for Akane and the mangled verb forms ending with "aru" are for Shampoo. The meatball head uses it to return her "punishing" speeches back to the rails after she loses the track completely (all too often, considering her oratory ability).

**4**  
The manga canon, volume thirty-something. It wasn't stated specifically that Nabiki sold her to a _brothel_, she just sold her to a casino in Hong-Kong. Figure the rest.

**5**  
TTGL is a creation of GAINAX.

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— Orphus users (3 bugs so far)


	9. It Gets Worse

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 9,  
It Gets Worse**

The light of rising sun was falling at a sharp angle on the broken ruin of a city block turning it into a labyrinth of warm shine and deep shadows. Whole sections all but disappeared in the shadow of buildings still standing. The dawn light made highly visible the dust covering the machines and people bustling around clad in coveralls and construction helmets. The floodlights that kept the scene lit for the entire night went dim not lighting anything as they were unable to compete against the life-giving luminary.

"This way, please." An engineer lead a couple of military officers through the controlled chaos as emergency workers continued clearing the ruins all around them. Jackhammers roared, construction vehicles crawled around flashing their annoyingly beeping strobe beacons. Beyond the foundations left of the first row of buildings there was a second row, damaged irreparably but still standing thanks to the huge reserves granted by seismic-resistant construction. The siding was torn away, naked concrete walls gaping with wide cracks and an occasional breech. There were some unrecognizable remains hanging down from the naked window apertures, sometimes there was a mangled mess of internal walls sticking out. Colonel Tanaka wondered again how such a devastation could happen without anyone getting killed.

Anyone they _knew of_, he corrected himself casting a brief glance back, at the circular bald patch swept clean by the black hole, a serene circle of dirty water in its center. If someone was too slow in getting out of the buildings that once stood there or was stupid enough to dawdle on the streets...

They passed the second row of buildings and found themselves in a narrow dead end littered with small debris and broken glass but relatively passable even for a car.

"It's here, the engineer said pulling up a plastic tape to let them pass. The tape surrounded a spot near a wall. "We didn't touch anything... Well, not after we understood what we were dealing with. We just moved aside the thrash covering the... object." He pointed at a torn mattress laying aside.

One glance was enough for the colonel to recognize the said 'object'. He saw it once before, though it wasn't charred and partly melted back then.

"Thank you, we appreciate your help," he said to the engineer showing no outward sign that his heart fell. "Could you please bring someone with a jackhammer? We'd like to extract the object applying as little direct force as possible.

"Of course, I'll send someone right away!" The engineer ran away to give orders leaving two military officers alone with the find.

"Colonel, it's not the...?" The young lieutenant, a participant of the recent battle for Tokyo asked with a wain hope.

"I'm afraid it is," Tanaka replied grimly as he walked around surveying the partly melted staff thrust into asphalt with such a force it buried itself halfway into the ground, surrounded by a web of cracks. "There could be no mistake, here's a heart-shaped ring at the top. Everything matches." He recognized one of the dark spots as charred remains of flesh and became even more grim. "I'm afraid, lieutenant, our heroic girls suffered their first loss..."

(シーンブレイク)

"You can go in, Mizuno-sensei." The private saluted her, then added in an apologizing tone: "Sorry for the delay."

"It's nothing," Saeko reassured him. "It's as it should be. I'm grateful that you are guarding my daughter so well."

"It's a honor for _us_." He didn't give up. "After all they have done for us... For _all_·of us, anything less would be an ingratitude."

Saeko had nothing to reply to that. This truth — pure and open — filled the mother's heart with pride. And with a great worry which she pushed back with an act of willpower innate to her profession. There are few people beyond medical doctors who have such a need for the wisdom to accept things beyond one's power to change. And for the wisdom to recognize the line where your limit is.

The youngish woman — her looks didn't betray the fact she had an almost adult daughter — entered a nondescript door and found herself in narrow concrete confines of a tunnel going sharply down. She began descending carefully down the moist steps of a stair squeezed between aged walls still bearing imprints from the molding boards. The stair was dimly lit by a row of massive, archaic looking lamps under the arched ceiling. The left wall was lined by a number of cables hanging on rows of rusty hooks — she watched carefully to not catch on one. It seems this 'underground base' her daughter mentioned was a glorified bomb shelter from World War Two.

She passed a widely open oval door sporting a handwheel and found herself in an arching hallway bearing some signs of modern age. The opposing wall stood out with a lighter tone of fresh concrete, the rectangular steel door in its middle casting harsh glares of reflected light from fluorescent lamps hanging on the ceiling. Looking closer Saeko noticed a cone-shaped hole to the right of the door, in its dark depth there could be seen a gun muzzle. To the both sides of the door through which she entered there were two massive, stocky cylinders in camouflage paint beeping rhythmically, half a barrel in size. The cylinders had massive lids wider than cylinders themselves. Their rough surface hinted at unyielding solidity of steel armor. There were also things completely unfamiliar to her hanging on the walls, with foreboding "this side towards the enemy" stenciled on them in English. She felt a chill along her spine.

"A moment, Mizuno-sensei," a voice sounding from the intercom was distorted, barely recognizable. "Attention, the airlock is opening!"

The steel door started sliding sideways accompanied with electric motors whirring. It took a while before its edge showed. Saeko hurried to leave the trap filled with the patiently waiting death. But her relief was short-lived. Beyond the door there was an almost identical stretch of arched corridor. There were three cylinders here, in all corners except the close right one occupied by a massive machine-gun pointed through an loophole into the previous chamber. The door — or, more likely, the massive steel plate began crawling back with a whirr, until it clanked shut. Then there was an oppressive, dead silence. The dissonant beeping of armored cylinders just made it deeper.

"One moment," a voice crackled from the ceiling. "Scanners must ascertain that you aren't a disguised youma, otherwise it won't open.

The onerous waiting stretched on. Finally, there was a merry ding definitely ripped off some elevator. A green lamp lit above the door an the last armor plate started crawling aside.

Saeko felt relieved leaving the airlock system behind. She was in the base proper now. It was the same three-meter wide corridor slash tunnel stretching away into the brightly lit emptiness. There was a barely perceptible smell of mold in the cold air, the concrete walls greedily sucking warmth right out of you. She stumbled, almost breaking her heel-piece on a grate hastily thrown on top of the mess of cables snaking along the floor. Soon the corridor intersected with a similar one. To the left there was a storage, the passage blocked by a chaos of green metallic boxes. To the right there were rows of equipment racks filled with monitors, communication hardware and god knows what else. It all contrasted sharply with the weathered concrete of the ancient catacombs.

"Let me show you the way," suggested one of the three young military men that sat watching the appliance. His uniform, as well as insignia, was beyond her limited knowledge, so she couldn't even guess his rank.

Saeko followed him through the labyrinth of chilly tunnels.

"You could get really lost here," her escort explained. "They haven't decided yet if we will be demothballing the base, so there's nobody except us, the skeleton crew. Well, if you don't count the emptiness and desolation keeping us company down here."

True to his words they didn't meet anybody. Their steps were raising a resounding echo under the concrete arched ceiling. After another turn she saw two endless rows of benches lining the walls. Here and there on the walls there were... propaganda posters of the old imperial army?

"We've in fact robbed a museum," her escort replied the unasked question. "They used to guided tourists here. Well, we hadn't have time nor need to remove all the decorations."

The painstakingly recreated environment of a World War Two bomb shelter looked weird — creepy even — lit by bright modern fluorescent lamps. It's like an ancient sin that crawled from the darkness of ages forgotten into the sunlit present, Saeko thought. For her, like for most modern Japanese, this all emanated something dark like a breath of doctor Ishii Shirou.

They made final turn exiting into the main hall. To be honest, o could call it a 'hall' only by contrast with the narrowness of the previous tunnels. An another tunnel stretched away into the darkness, wider than ones the subway trains travel but still not that wide. The concrete floor filled the bottom third of this grand concrete pipe. The lighting was off and the far end drowned in darkness. As well as the near end. There was only one spot of light containing a construct resembling a half-disemboweled steel donut surrounded by haphazardly placed tables with various appliance. On the very edge of light, there sat her daughter in her superhuman guise, bent awkwardly in front of some screens. The long ribbons of her back bow hung on both sides of the chair, their ends resting on the floor.

"Thank you," Saeko said to the young military man. I'll take...

"I'm leaving you alone," he interrupted hastily, feeling visibly awkward. He saluted hurriedly, nervously, then he was gone.

Saeko sighed rubbing the bridge of her nose. Now also this. Her daughter was always a bit absent-minded — or, more precisely, concentrating a bit too deeply. But making an oversight like this one... It was so unlike her. Saeko started walking towards her long-suffering child trying to step silently.

But in the end she stumbled on some cables invisible in the gloom. Mercury jerked upright and fumbled in panic trying to hide the book she had been reading.

"Mom! Why are you—!"

"Psychic Trauma Pathology," the mother listed with a quiet disapproval, "Volume 3, Victims of Sexual Aggression and Domestic Abuse. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, Modern Methods of Diagnostics. Psychological Aid and Methods of Reintegration into Society For the Combatants." Mercury's eyes widened as she looked at her mother in fright. "Did you really think ordering these books would go unnoticed? In the light of recent events?" (note 1)

Mercury's lips formed a silent "o".

"No," Saeko hurried to reassure her. "They didn't tell anyone. This won't go further than a few people who already knows. But they felt it was prudent to warn _me_.

Mercury's shoulders drooped as she breathed out in relief.

"But such a selection..." the mother continued with a poorly hidden worry. "Ami... What had really happened? For the press, I can understand, you declared that it was just a close call. But... you lied, didn't you?" The pain in her voice finally broke through all barriers.

"No-no-no-no!" Mercury hastily assured her, jumping up so sharply that she dropped the book she hid under the table. "There, on the TV, we told the truth!" Seeing that her mother wasn't truly believing her, she blurted out rapidly: "It's just that I got an impression that all that pawing and snot-smearing should theoretically have been close enough... to not matter if it wasn't... I mean, it had to be equally traumatic to an actual... What am I saying!" She shook her head trying to calm down. "It's not what is important!" She started digging frantically through a pile of papers until she found a particular sheet. "Here." She pointed at one of the lines. "Foreign substances in my blood. These are all products of decomposition, harmless substances my Senshi metabolism broke the original poisons into, which happened relatively fast. But... not instantly. It was a devilish cocktail. At least three different aphrodisiacs, derivatives of cocaine, antidepressants, synthetic endorphins... Nothing special in themselves, but all together... It's a very effective combination..." She started walking nervously back and forth along the table, so engrossed in her explanation that she failed to notice the effect her words were having on her mother. "Remember I've been having hives, around two years ago, from a mere hint of wooing? Well, today right after... I had a relapse. I think my entire body got covered in hives."

"Oh gods," Saeko breathed out. "Ami..." One doesn't have to be a specialist in the area, it's a widely known fact that nothing crushes the rape victim's psyche as utterly as the pleasure felt in the process. However fleeting and forced it is. "My poor girl..." Her voice faltered.

"No! Mom! You got it all wrong!" Mercury shouted out in panic as she noticed, at last, the horror in her mother's eyes. The kind that makes one's hair gray early. "I'm all right!" She breathed out forcing herself to calm down and continued in a quieter tone: "Please forgive me, I got carried away and switched to a wrong topic. No, what worries me is a completely different thing. What I experienced today should have— No, _must have_·broken me leaving a lasting psychic trauma..." She clenched her fists, her voice seeping frustration. "But nothing like this happened! Even after the crushing stress of being hounded by paparazzi! A human being should not recover from such blows so quickly. But here I am, careless as if nothing happened! No compulsive memories, no fear of men, not even a guilt complex! _Nothing!_·I could just up and go eating ice-cream with my friends.

"What?" Saeko exclaimed in shock. "You are so distressed because you _don't_·have this crippling trauma?" She fell silent for a moment, completely baffled. "But that's wonderful! It means your magic can heal your mind as miraculously as it heals your body! Why are you worrying about absence of all these agonizing symptoms?"

"No, mom... It's exactly what worries me, you see?" She looked into the mother's eyes, and there was a feverish, paranoidal glint in her eyes. "The magic makes subtle corrections to my mind. And it scares me. How would it discern a psychic trauma from a life experience? Wouldn't it happen that I stop growing up, stuck mentally at sixteen forever? And what about memories? I can feel even now as particular details of the today's battle are... fading, feeling less and less relevant. Trying to sink to the bottom and get lost there. What else would I forget? What have I already forgotten?" A moist glint appeared in her eyes. "What if I forget you? My father?"

"My girl, you are still overthinking," Saeko admonished her lovingly as she hugged the girl torturing herself with questions. "And it seems to me you don't understand your own magic too well."

"Yes, right," Mercury agreed. "I know too little about it. It's so hard to analyze. I'm only beginning to figure out the algorithms—"

"That's what I meant," the mother interrupted her as she pulled the girl away to an arms length to look into her eyes that had a feverish glint in them. "Isn't that magic a continuation of your own _soul_? Isn't that power a manifestation of your own will? Doesn't it stand above the laws of the mortal world, above the relativity and molecular biology?"

There was confusion in Mercury's eyes.

"Would the formal logic," Saeko continued "be the right tool to analyze the _super_natural where the laws of spirit and faith hold sway?"

"I'm such a fool," Mercury breathed out leaning against her mother to hide her face in the older woman's shoulder, as it was burning with shame. And yet she felt completely relaxed, the first time in many hours. The feverish tension released her.

"No you aren't" Saeko disagreed as she ruffled her daughter's hair. "You are very smart. Very. You're just slightly short of wisdom. But that's nothing to worry about. It will come. With years, with experience - you won't even notice."

"Thank you, mom." Mercury sniffed happily. "You have no idea how much you did just help me..." She inhaled and exhaled noisily. "It gnawed at me since the time ve've been..." She started slightly, sharply cutting herself off.

"You've been what?" Saeko asked with worry. But her daughter already had that invisible barrier up.

"I'm sorry, mom." Mercury said in an apologetic voice. "There are secrets that... don't belong to me."

"Never mind, then." Saeko smiled at her reassuringly, keeping her worries at bay with an effort of will. It was better to avoid thinking what the aborted admission meant. It was better to forget and not remember again this sign of how close the one precious to you walks to death. Much closer than she lets on.

They were interrupted by a shrill signal from above. A distorted voice reached from some speaker hidden in the gloom: "Sailor Mercury, it's urgent! Colonel Tanaka is en route to you. I'm afraid..." The voice paused for a moment. "that he is bringing bad news."

"Well, the calm is over," Mercury said with a sigh as she hastily wiped the traces of tears from her face. "You'd better go, mom..." She made a confident smile. "We'll deal with it. Whatever is waiting for us, we'll definitely deal with it."

Saeko desperately wanted to hope it was really so.

(シーンブレイク)

One after another they were coming into the underground hall with its high-tech steel 'donut', the portal device they used to assault the Jadeite's base. One after another they came there in their Senshi forms, even if there was no sense hiding it anymore. Their faces were turning grim as soon at their eyes fell on the partly melted but still recognizable staff laying on an examination table. Mercury didn't show her face as she worked bent over a web of wires connecting the half-gutted portal "donut" with a pile of computers.

At last, the last ones came: Sol, Iris and Moon whose bald spot was covered with a yellow-black bandana tied askew like a kerchief. She took up the heavy, runny piece of metal. There was no Garnet orb in what remained of the staff's heart-shaped top. A great sadness appeared in the Senshi leader's features. "This is—" she began.

"Yes, these are charred remains of skin from her palms," Mercury affirmed still hiding her face in the contraption. "The DNA matches too, the remains of it they could find."

"So we lost a comrade in arms," Sailor Moon said firmly but with a deep sadness. "She probably died fighting to the end. And we didn't even know..."

"Setsuna-mama," Saturn whispered quietly. She didn't make a whimper, the bitter tears rolled down silently.

Iris lowered her gaze, unable to look at anyone. She reddened in shame remembering herself vehemently badmouthing Pluto. Maybe the same moment as the woman...

"I ain't buying it." Sol declared with grim determination. "And won't allow myself to believe until I see the dead body with my own eyes." The girls lifted their eyes at her, the mournful silence broken. "Until proven otherwise, I'll consider her alive... somewhere, in need of our help," she finished with conviction.

Now all eyes turned to Mercury: she was the only one who could've... But the blue haired girl just shook her head. "The staff was found in ruins near the former enemy portal," she told them quietly as she turned towards the screens. "But that zone... It's impossible to analyze." She clenched her fists, bent over the table. Her entire pose radiated frustration. "The contemporary technologies aren't even close to what I need, and the magi-tech..." She pressed a couple keys and a ceiling-mounted projector lit up projecting a map onto a wall-mounted screen. It was a strange weave of color curls and lines with a Juuban map superimposed over it. In the center, the weave broke, distorting in a slow rippling until the colors bled together into a featureless gray spot of roughly circular shape. Mercury pressed another key. The color weave was replaced with a complex network of scintillating green and blue lines. In the center the lines distorted, vibrating and jumping around randomly, repulsed by the same spot now filled with black and white static. Mercury switched the picture a couple more times but the abnormal spot stayed in the same place, only changing its appearance. "As you could see, there's a hole there," she explained with a sigh. "The properties of our world undergone a change so drastic that all magic known to us simply ceases to have sense there. It's impossible to examine using the means at hand."

"Including my mirror, alas," added Neptune.

"Also, it's impossible to teleport there," added Sol. "You just couldn't see into there... Well, you know what I am talking about. That inner eye stuff turns blind. When you try to enter the damn place on foot, your transformation just reverts. And not in a good way... Well, enough to say I had to rob a clothing store using my invisibility technique."

"Idiot!" Iris slapped her upside the head. "Why haven't you warned us? What if something happened to you?"

"What do you mean, rob a clothing store?" Jupiter asked, confused.

"Does that mean the ki techniques work there?" Mercury asked, her interest piqued. She was ready to jump at any lead.

"Well, your seifuku disappears," Sol explained shivering uncomfortably. "Well... and that's all. Don't go there unless you are in civilian."

"Oh!" Jupiter gasped.

"That was one of my favorite shirts," Sol added grumpily. "And now it's lost in some astral dump or another. About the the ki techniques... They work, but not for long. Your ki just..." She fell silent searching for an appropriate word. "Well, it kind of dims, like your battery is dying or something. The longer you loiter near the center... It's harder and harder to use it like something numbs your spirit. I almost broke my leg simply jumping down from a lamppost. Ah, and the Jusenkyou doesn't work either. You stay in which form you enter, no matter how much water..."

"Idiot‼！" Iris hit her so hard that she got embedded into the concrete floor, with a spiderweb of cracks and everything. "What if it killed you! What if you got stuck mid-transformation, like some futanari‼！"

Sol's face went blue from the belated horror.

"Please stop!" Mercury exclaimed. "Many of these machines are very fragile, they could fail from such shocks!"

The pile of computers emitted a loud, urgent beeping. Mercury turned to it immediately forgetting about the two.

"Seems like you broke it," Sol whispered towards Iris, her voice smug.

"You won't get off that easily!" the other girl hissed keeping her voice low.

The sound of Mercury's rapid tapping ceased, the image on the wall switched to a world map with two blinking red spots, one in Tokyo and another one directly above it, somewhere in Siberia.

"Don't tell me there's another one!" Uranus exclaimed as she instantly caught the meaning.

"Sorry, but there is," Mercury confirmed tensely, her eyes firmly on the screens. "A second zone has formed just now... Or, more precisely, two to fourteen minutes ago... It's approximately three thousand kilometers directly to the north." The computers had a fit of frantic beeping. She added, with alarm: "And the density of that zone is rising rapidly!"

"A new enemy, then!" Uranus slammed her fist into the palm of her hand, her expression grim and determined.

"Another demon like that one?" Venus shuddered in revulsion.

"Let's flatten him quickly while he ain't at his fullest yet!" Sol began fretting.

"Then... we go all together?" Moon suggested without any enthusiasm. "And here I promised my parents I'll just attend the meeting and be right back..."

"Umm... It's not necessarily an enemy," Mercury said trying to persuade them. "We don't know who else is listed as 'users' of that Ahs system. There's always a possibility of a friendly contact."

"What do you suggest?" Sol pierced the other girl with an intense stare.

"Let's scout quietly first," Mercury replied. "And only then, if there's really... Ack!"

Not even letting her finish Sol grabbed her and both disappeared in a flash as she shouted "Solar Teleport!"

"Idiot!" Iris growled towards the empty place. "You can't scare people like that!"

"To think of it, Mercury raised a valid point," Uranus drawled as she forcibly calmed herself. She won't repeat that mistake anymore.

Minutes of tedious waiting stretched on, disturbed with only the multivocal beeping from the forgotten computers. Who could say now what the machines were trying to warn their unwitting masters about? Nobody but Mercury could make sense of this jury-rigged conglomeration.

(シーンブレイク)

Sol and Mercury took battle stances immediately as they teleported to the place. All Sol could "see" before teleporting was a blurry image of some mountain ridge. The mental images of the destination point were blurry and unreliable. They teleported almost blindly appearing on one of the mountaintops.

Sol took a good look around. "Are we still on Earth?"

The surrounding landscape was completely lifeless. Mountain ranges stretched from the West to the East, the bulks of dark stone devoid of even a sign of vegetation. Only the snow covering the tops and stretching down the slopes in wide stripes made the picture less monotonous.

Sol shivered. It wasn't the cold: she, as a Senshi, felt comfortable even in the vacuum of outer space. She could probably sleep burrowed in the snow like a polar bear. No, it was the air of empty, hopeless loneliness hanging over these mountains that made her feel ill at ease.

Mercury concentrated her efforts on the readings of her computer. Left with the task of guarding them both, Sol was looking around time and again but all she could feel was the ever-present background noise of bacteria inhabiting the top layer of the Earth crust. There was no one for many kilometers around.

"Let's move over there." Mercury pointed at the adjacent ridge as she closed her computer. The distance was small, just a kilometer, so they ran jumping from rock to rock, to save Sol's energy.

"What's with this land?" Sol asked, confused. The forty kph they ran at was a light walk for her, not an obstacle for babbling away. "Me and pops saw lots of wilderness, but I can't remember anything like this."

"It's the most.. uninhabited part.. of Siberia.." Mercury replied between breathes. "It was charted.. only in the thirties.. the coldest winters.. of Northern hemisphere.." She fell silent for a moment as she made a huge jump. "Human cannot.. survive here.." One more huge jump. "Communists build.. their convict colonies.. here... Wait a moment..."

They reached the designated point and Mercury dove back into her scanning. The view here was exactly like the one from the previous ridge: many such ridges stretching parallel to each other, similar like twins.

Sol sighed. "Well, at least there are no bystanders here, we could fight without holding back if we have to..."

"Here it is!" Mercury interrupted her. "Two point eight kilometers to the West."

They ran again, along the ridge top, now slower, carefully choosing their way to stay hidden behind the folds of the landscape. Five minutes later they cautiously peeked from a rocky cover, staring at an alien artifact of severely monolithic proportions. A huge, sharp pointed black pyramid a good third of Tokyo Tower in height loomed there inertly showing no signs of activity as it stood in the middle of the rocky slope.

"What the heck is that thing?" Sol muttered looking over the ominous monument that had no right of being here.

"I don't know," replied Mercury. "Just like the zone in Tokyo it denies any attempts to scan it. This pyramid is a blind spot for all sensors, I know no more than my eyes could tell me."

Sol felt it too. She could perceive the pyramid with her eyes only. All her Senshi senses perceived an indistinct murk in its place. Truly a blind spot.

"So we know where it is, but don't know what it is," Mercury summed up as she frowned closing her computer. "I'm afraid the best strategy in this case would be waiting until the unknown makes the first move. We have no other options than to rely on the blind luck."

"Let's bring everyone else then," suggested Sol. "To blast at it all at once if we have to fight."

"I don't know." Mercury frowned. "Here, at our current distance, it's safe. But if it suddenly starts to expand the zone, only you and Iris would stay battle-worthy. The rest of us risk to be left completely unprotected against this sub-zero environment, a thousand kilometers away from the human dwellings. That would be a very stupid death.

"We'll just grab winter clothing, then." Sol refused to back off. "After all, we whacked that demon with our magic nicely in the beginning. Especially Sailor Moon.

In the end they agreed that Mercury stays to watch while Sol teleports back. She ran to hide behind the adjacent ridge, to avoid alerting a potential enemy with the flash.

Then she received a brutal beating from Iris for leaving Mercury alone without cover. Despite the toughness of her ki-reinforced body and her magic armor, she got an impressive shiner from the volcanic Senshi.

Sailor Moon was quick to stop the beating, mostly out of worry that Iris inadvertently damages some important scientific thingy. However saddened she was by fights between the Saotome couple, meddling in their family matters felt... wrong somehow. Sailor Moon truste her intuition.

They hastily contacted Mercury making sure she is all continued watching her trying to keep talking to the reluctantly replying girl engrossed in her scanning.

Minutes stretched on, nothing was happening. Gradually everyone relaxed. There was no pressing need to teleport there as there were no clearly discernible signs of an identifiable enemy.

"That's weird." Mercury's voice was barely audible, as she was talking to herself deep in thought.

Only Sol heard her, immediately asking with worry: "What is it? Something is happening there?"

"I... I don't know." Mecrury was almost growling in frustration. "Parameters and patterns are flowing. Rhythms are changing... Maybe something is really happening. Maybe it's just a background noise normal for the passive state of this... unknown and this zone will stay inert for the next thousand years. I just don't know!"

"I'm going there," Sol proclaimed flatly. "To cover you while you are distracted. So it won't end like that time," she reminded tactlessly.

"We too!" Sailor Moon proclaimed. "We stand for each other. And we will met this unknown together."

"I don't think the pyramid will stay inert," added Neptune. "My gift may be blinded but one doesn't need to be a diviner to understand this: it didn't just appear. It was summoned by someone."

"That's right!" Sol agreed grimly. "That bastard mentioned others like him. It seems our world attracted attention of an another one."

Venus shuddered.

"It's decided then!" Sailor Moon declared in a commanding voice. "We are going all together! We'll keep watch there until that another one reveals himself or it works out somehow. I'll just," her voice lost all its conviction, "call my parents."

"Let's grab some winter clothing and other supplies," injected Sol. "What if they dispel us again? Dying naked in the snowy wilderness isn't on my plans."

Their lack of optimism wasn't helped by that possibility.

(シーンブレイク)

With exception of the bedridden Mamoru and the MIA Pluto all the ten remaining protectors of the solar system miled behind a rock outcropping a few hundred meters down the slope from the pyramid. From time to time one or another of them stuck her head out to look at the alien monument as they twisted in the wind.

Sailor Moon was freezing, the only one of them. Mars tried to explain it to her that the cold she felt was a pure autosuggestion. But Moon, it seems, got it in her head too firmly that she _had_·to be freezing when staying in a mini-skirt amidst the Siberian snows. The counter-antisuggestion wasn't working.

Venus sat on the of winter clothing piled at the base of a jutting rock outcropping. She wore grim expression uncharacteristic of her. She was so anxious she had to restrain herself from gnawing at her fingernails. The very possibility to fight such a demon again roused a nauseating, sticky fear in her. Her stomach lurched from a mere memory of that scum: how could one pervert the wonderful gift of love into such a disgusting mockery... Venus shook herself up raising her gloomy stare at the snow-covered vale and the mountains across it. She found no consolation here either: this arctic landscape reminded too sharply of their death at the North pole.

The Outers, especially Uranus, weren't any merrier. In their previous fight, Hotaru met their decision to leave her back home with understanding. But this time, she flatly refused. The loss of Setsuna weighing heavily upon her spirit, she showed an uncharacteristic stubbornness telling them she decided to always stay at her parents side. Even in death. Such a phrasing didn't improve the mood of the said parents at all.

Sol and Iris were lazily warming up. Which meant they were wiping the rocky slope with each other just once a minute, trying not to cause landslides.

Mercury continued scanning quietly, alert to any minute changes, with Jupiter silently envious of her having something to do.

Time stretched on and on, mind-numbingly monotonous.

"A second blind spot budding off!" Mercury exclaimed making everyone startle. Alerted, they felt their powers slightly waning and their supernatural senses numbing.

They rushed to look at the pyramid. There was a small figure clad in what looked like a medieval knight armor bobbing several meters above the ground. It was held aloft by two jerky plasma jets originating from the ends of thin rods protruding from the figure's back. The pyramid now shone with a newly formed entranceway arch.

The Senshi stared at him with rising anxiousness. Only Venus whispered with immense relief: "Thank God, no more tentacle demons!"

At the closer inspection it became apparent that the strange knight wasn't human. His legs were too short and his arms too long. In stature he was probably shorter than even Sol. His rounded armor but looked similar to the medieval Maximillian suits: there was a complex system of overlapping plates of perfect mirror forming a completely closed, smooth surface with not a slightest chink in it. The prolonged pig-faced helmet was, similarly, solid, reflecting the environment like the curved mirror it was. One was left wondering how he can see.

The stranger, meanwhile, made some sort of convoluted gesture. The Senshi felt a second, more prominent wave of weakening, their senses dulling further.

"An enemy, after all!" Uranus exclaimed, her voice full of bitter disappointment.

Saturn groaned clutching at her temples as she fell down to one knee.

Uranus went berserk.

"Wait, we still don't..." Mercury began helplessly seeing Uranus rush the strange knight with all the strategy and grace of a rabid bison.

The girlsSenshi ran after Uranus crying her to stop. Not only were they still unsure it was an enemy, they weren't ready to attack!

After that, the events unfolded rapidly. Uranus launched the deadly arch of "Space Sword Blaster". The crescent of yellow light hit its mark fading impotently. The enemy didn't even notice that, busy with making complex gestures. Uranus launched two more ranged attacks amid her mad dash. These two met the same fate. Then she leaped right at the stranger aiming to decapitate him with one sword strike. When she was almost upon him, he noticed her, at last. And made a startled swatting motion.

Uranus was thrown back so violently she just zipped over their heads flailing like a ragdoll. The stranger, on his turn, lost his balance from the overly sharp motion and tumbled down slamming head-first into a pile of boulders. But the shocked girls almost missed all of that, failing even to take note of where the hopefully alive Uranus has landed.

Because the whole ridge across the valley followed Uranus' example, thrown away as if kicked with a titan's foot. Mountains slid back, all the while collapsing into themselves. A tremendous dust cloud erupted upwards hiding the further details of the devastation.

"Just like that, off-handedly?" Venus half-croaked, half-squeaked.

The ground under their feet started shaking making them stumble. The sound reached them and its roar was tremendous.

Saturn completely lost it. Screaming something they couldn't hear she unleashed her terrifying power, launching the attack with one sharp swing of her halberd. There was a blinding purple glow none of then have seen before, they weren't used to Saturn's technique working that way. A deafening silence fell quenching even the roar of the tortured earth. The hellish glow drowned out both the knight and the pyramid, rising higher than the mountains. Thousands tons of solid rock crumbled rising up in black chunks and evaporating in the purpleness.

Nine shocked girls stood on their knees petrified. Saturn stumbled turning to run in search of her missing parent. But she was barely able to walk, too weak and drained.

The purple glow subsided revealing a huge gash in the mountain slope. A huge V-shaped gash. There was a sector of intact landscape in its center, the strange knight standing at its sharp point shielding his hidden eyes with his arm.

The nine girls gaped, their faces pale, their eyes wide, an icy grip of fear clutching at their hearts. The memory of invincible Sailor Galaxia was still fresh in their minds, and here it looked like that terror was ready to repeat itself!

"Well, that was disappointing," the knight said lowering his arm. His voice was clear, genderless and lifeless as if it was a machine speaking. "Nevertheless, let's get on with it." There was no trace of emotion in his voice.

The plasma jets spurting again, the menacing metallic figure began rising into the air.

(シーンブレイク)

November 27, 2011. Translated January 10, 2012. Last correction March 19, 2012

**Author's notes:**

**1**  
A reminder: in the time of this story, Internet wasn't out of its diapers yet. No Wikipedia and other luxuries for you. Even Ami can't find a specialized information in the network when it wasn't there yet. So she had to rely on thick paper books.

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— poVitter  
—Orphus users (2 ляпа total)


	10. Irresistible Might

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 10,  
Irresistible Force**

"He wants to nail us from above?" Iris exclaimed in alarm. "Guys! You have to snap out of it! We have to do something!"

Mars, Jupiter and Uranus launched their powerful techniques. The powerful charges of elemental force faded out as they reached their target, not having a slightest effect. Neptune shouted out "Submarine Reflection", her mirror emitting a beam like a search-light. This faultless technique of true seeing was known for dispelling any illusions, revealing the enemies' true form and their weak spots. But not this time. Neptune wasn't surprised when the beam failed to reach the enemy, fading a couple meters short of him.

With a fierce shout, Venus threw her chain trying to entangle the knight and bring him down. Born of magic, the chain dispersed as it was going to reach the stranger. The part remaining in her hand slashed at the rocky slope, the severed end dispersed in golden sparks.

"Everyone, scatter!" Sailor Sol yelled as she rushed forward. "Don't you see? He's immune to magic!" She jumped over the V-shaped ravine made by Saturn onto the sector of intact rock, landing right below the rising knight.

Sailor Moon launched her tiara showing her ability to do it in less than half a second. Everyone felt a slight hope: it was this technique, after all, that proved decisive against the demon by tearing his shields apart like wet cardboard... The shining discus dashed, ligthning-fast, ricocheted off of the knight's armor in a shower of sparks and tumbled down, dull black and lifeless.

The knight was rising, faster and faster, having now gained around five stories above ground.

Sol made a desperate vertical jump. The enemy awkwardly bobbed in a belated attempt to dodge, but she have already grabbed him by his ankle. They immediately started sagging in the air: it seems the knight's jet engines weren't powerful enough to support them both.

Iris rushed towards their probable point of landing.

"Detransform!" Sol shouted, her gloves gone and the golden bracers were starting to disperse into sparks of light, as well as her wing-shaped decorative shoulder pads. The knight windmilled his legs flapping her around like a rag. "Careful, he's strong as two Ryougas!" She swung around his leg throwing her body up, grabbing the knight by the sides of his head with her heels and clinging to his back. Instantly reverting into a naked Ranma-chan.

"Watch out!" Mercury shouted, alarmed that her comrade lost her magical protection. "These jets are like welding burners but stronger!"

Ranma saw it herself that it wasn't a good idea to be touched by these incandescent plasma torches glowing dull violet. She jerked herself upward grabbing the thin jet-bearing beams that protruded out of the enemy's back. He started twisting his head and her feet almost slipped off of it. It was like trying to hold onto a leading wheel of a bulldozer: however you try it turns anyway completely disregarding your efforts. "Correction!" Ranma shouted towards Akane who've already detransformed. "He's monstrously strong! Don't let him grab you, he'll squash you like a ripe tomato and won't even notice!" Seeing the futility of her attempts to bend the beams she tucked her legs in, then uncoiled like a spring sending the enemy towards the ground with a double kick so powerful that she herself gained an upward speed.

The knight slammed nose-first into the rocky slope just below the ravine and started rolling down, floundering awkwardly and flopping from side to side. Akane, who expected him to land on the narrow central sector, was about to jump over the ravine onto the slope below when Venus detransformed into Minako. Into Minako in a warm winter clothing, over whose shoulder there was slung a...

"Are you nuts?" Mars yelled at her, backpedaling.

"Hey, hey, careful with that thing!" Jupiter sprung backwards.

"Umm... Minako-chan, do you really know how to use it?" Sailor Moon asked warily as she backed prudently away from her friend. Considering the blond's talent for epic failures with handling any machinery...

"Of course she doesn't!" Neptune shouted as she grabbed Saturn by her hand. "Take cover!" She dragged her daughter down the slope disappearing behind the rock outcropping where they had their spare winter clothing piled.

Taken by surprise amidst a jump, Akane just eeped. She threw herself backwards, back-first into the ravine, as soon as her feet touched the ground.

"You won't get us that easily!" Minako yelled hysterically. "Not anymore!" The M-16 in her hands roared shaking and sending a long burst in the general direction of the enemy. Bullets started ricocheting in all directions striking dust puffs from the rocks. Mars and Jupiter threw themselves to the ground praying that they wouldn't be hit. Stuck in a high jump, Ranma yelped when the weapon almost wrenched itself from Minako's hands, a wild burst coming dangerously close to the redhead. Sailor Moon scrammed down the slope like a frightened rabbit. Stumbling on the first rock to get in her way, she continued her tactical withdrawal tumbling head over heels.

"Dammit!" Minako growled tugging at the empty magazine. After some struggle she managed to uproot it, then she pulled a fresh one from the pocket of her parka.

"Stop it, you idiot! You'll kill someone!" Ranma yelled at her approaching the ground. But Minako didn't listen, beating the full magazine in like a nail. Ranma landed casting a glance at the knight who've already stopped rolling down and was trying to stand up. She looked at Minako who fell onto one knee gripping the weapon properly this time. She jumped down into the ravine joining Akane.

This time the crazed blond aimed better. She started firing at the knight with short bursts. With just twenty meters separating them, it was hard to miss, even for her. The bullets now ricocheted off of the knight too, flashing with showers of sparks.

The enemy flopped back down, muzzle-first, losing his balance out of surprise rather than from bullets having any effect on him. While Minako fumbled trying to attach a third mzgazine, the naked Ranma fell on her like a typhoon and tore the assault rifle out of her hands throwing it over the horizon. Then she laid into her with a verbal onslaught including "are you nuts", "you coulda killed someone" and "he doesn't feel it anyway" while stopping to grab a fistful of spent casings off the ground. Making just two huge leaps she reached the knight landing on his head. Her weight didn't bother him, he continued pushing off the ground with his hands. The plasma jets assisted him having turned downwards, leaving molten spots and making some rocks crack from the heat. Ranma moved, jerking backwards and thus pivoting the enemy around his hands so that his helmet slammed into the ground, his legs flailing in the air. It took him just a second to move his arms forward restoring his balance, but that second was all Ranma needed to push two spent casings into the tiny cylinders on the end of the beams. Sputtering with drops of molten metal, the plasma jets died.

"Got him!" exclaimed Ranma. "Now these burners are no danger!"

The surface of the beams and the engines cracked all over, curling inwards like the amalgam of an old mirror. The strange devices were see-through, with nothing inside the disintegrating surface, for the brief moment before they dispersed in quickly vanishing silvery specks.

"Now he can't fly!" Akane shouted leaping towards them and sending the knight tumbling down the slope with a kick in the back. "Ouch!" She jumped on one foot. "He's unnaturally hard!"

"He just negates anything you do with your ki, it's like that zone!" Ranma exclaimed as she dashed after the rolling knight whose awkward attempts to stop just prolonged his tumbling down the relatively flat slope. "Remember, I almost broke my leg?" She leap-kicked him with her bare heel adding a hefty acceleration.

"And what's now?" asked Mars, it was no rhetorical question. "Are you doing any damage?"

"I don't think so," Ranma replied self critically. "There's not a scratch on his armor. But while we're rolling him around he's disoriented and cannot blow mountains away."

"He _pprobably_·can not," Akane corrected her grimly while punting the knight in turn. "But it's a stalemate. We can't do anything to him..." A boulder got between the floundering knight's legs bursting asunder into shards and pebbles like it got into a stone crushing machine. The knight didn't even notice its resistance. With a mighty battle shout Akane threw an another boulder at him. It rebounded off the knight's helmet sending him flying head over heels. "And he can't regain his footing." She finished on an optimistic note.

The knight, meanwhile, tried a different tactic: stretching his arms and legs wide he tried to walk on all fours like a bow-legged turtle. It looked it would be not easy to upturn him this time, but Ranma grabbed him by his foot turning him over his head and sending him sliding further on his back. "Watch out, he begins to adapt!" she warned.

The knight tried to use his monstrous strength next: hitting his elbow on the ground he propelled himself to flop onto his belly, then forcefully pushed off the ground with his palms throwing himself into a standing position. He'd inevitably fall onto his back, having propelled himself too forcefully, but he additionally pushed off with his legs sending himself into the air. For a whole meter. With the grace of a drunken log.

Akane followed his tumbling figure with a critical, half-lidded stare. The strange knight landed on his head then actually managed to cartwheel, tumbling head over heels several times before he twisted and slowed down plowing the rocks with the muzzle of his helmet.

Mars detransformed into Rei pulling from her bosom a paper slip with four elaborately drawn kanji, "evil spirit begone". Running up to the enemy she slapped the ward onto his back. The deceivingly harmless piece of paper was able to stop almost any enemy outright paralyzing the weak ones while scrambling the powers of the stronger ones making their magic glitch and fail.

The ward slid to the ground, a slip of common paper devoid of any mystic powers. Rei, for her trouble, barely dodged the flailing knight's arm. She prudently decided to retreat.

"I told you, he negates anything ki!" Ranma shouted, while upturning the opponent for an umpteenth time. "Bugger! Everything's useless!"

"Not entirely!" Mercury objected as she continued scanning, doing it non-stop from the beginning. Text lines and diagrams ran along the visor covering her face. "Jupiter, hit him with magic please."

"Get clear!" Jupiter shouted to the pair of martial artists. "Supreme Thunder!"

Her lightning bolt struck at the knight, cut short a meter from him.

"Right!" exclaimed Mercury, a joyous relief in her voice. "Now I am positive that whatever his unknown factor is, a new kind of energy or a magic incompatible with our own, our efforts aren't disappearing in vain! The energies mutually neutralize!"

"Mind explaining it for us mere mortals?" grumbled Minako who stood nearby.

"It's obvious!" Ranma shouted from where she was rolling the knight around. "Negating ki and magic isn't free for him, he wastes his own energy! We can win!"

"Exactly!" affirmed Mercury. "Even when Ranko kicks him and her ki disappears, his X-factor diminishes...!" Her good spirits waned a bit. "Or, to be precise, his charging rate drops slightly."

"X-factor?" asked Minako.

"Well, I had to call this phenomenon somehow," Mercury replied sheepishly.

"Waitaminute!" Ranma sounded alarmed. "_What_·charging rate?"

"His X-factor rises exponentially," explained Mercury. "At the speed of zero point eight percent of its current level per second. Since his arrival it have increased..." She tapped the keys. "Two point four times."

"And why didn't you tell this sooner?！" Rei exploded.

"I just managed to make sense of the data I'm getting," Mercury sounded almost offended. "And only after inventing a new method of filtration. He's impossible to scan directly, you know. All I really have are distortions and discrepancies between different scanning methods!"

"Did you hear that?" Ranma crackled her knuckles. "Guys, fire at'im! While he haven't grew ten times more stronger!"

Neptune launched her powerful technique. The emerald green ball of energy streamed towards the enemy to disappear without a sound.

"The X-factor dropped zero point three percent!" proclaimed Mercury.

"While it increases zero point eight per second?" exclaimed Akane. She punted the knight, turning him over, and jumped aside seeing Sailor Moon leveling her scepter at him.

"Moon... Spiral... Heart... Ache!" While she was powering up, the knight almost managed to lift onto his feet. After all, two seconds is too long, even for an ultimate technique.

A devastating beam of purifying magic erupted from the scepter. Inside the containing field lined with spirals of golden crescents there flowed a stream of bouncy pink hearts pushing each other in their rush to reach the target like angry rose petals. So powerful was this technique that the average youma died seeing only the first pink of the hearts rushing at it with an inexorable finality.

In the vicinity of the knight the containing field failed first, the spirals of crescents unwinding and falling apart in golden sparks. Huge pink hearts erupted outwards like water from a hose against a wall, just to pop an instant later in showers of tiny pink hearts vanishing into the thin air. But Sailor Moon wasn't giving up. Sliding one foot back, she pushed with all her might, an expression of an angry attack hamster on her features. The beam of magic continued to flow into nothingness.

"They balanced each other out!" proclaimed Mercury. "The X-factor doesn't grow any more!"

"How much more does this guy need?" Ranma shouted grabbing her henshin rod out of the thin air. "He's a monster! Sol Stellar Power Make-Up!" Transforming into Sailor Sol she commanded: "Transform everyone! Akane, your Senshi techniques are the weakest, pin him down by throwing rocks! Everybody else, bring out all you got and then some! Stellar Jet!" A twisting stream of blinding ligth struck out of her outstretched hands. Now there were two beams of magic bathing the knight in their devastating power.

Sailor Moon bit her lip groaning under the strain. But she held her beam. Others transformed, who was detransformed by now, and started blasting with all their might. The air around the enemy rippled, saturated with the magical energy rapidly flowing into nothingness. Iris kept launching boulder after boulder knocking the knight down.

"The X-factor has dropped by twenty percent!" Mercury proclaimed, her voice strained.

The Senshi began to tire out. Sailor Moon fell to one knee, sweat rolling down her face. She held her beam on the sheer stubbornness alone.

"We won't make it like that!" shouted Sol. "I have a lot of power yet, but this technique could only use so much! Everyone get back, I'll try to blast it all at once!"

"Don't you dare!" Iris shouted in horror. "You'll kill yourself!"

"It's too dangerous! " echoed Mercury. "That technique of yours is partially..."

"We got no choice!" Sol interrupted the other girl her as she dropped her beam. "Sailor Moon won't hold long enough! Then it's only me an' Stellar Jet, that would be a stalemate and we're doomed!" She put her hands together in a tiger hand seal, a radiant flaming aura beginning to build around her making others squint and shield their eyes.

Iris grit her teeth retreating after the rest of them. Only Moon stayed put stubbornly holding her beam.

"Amaterasu..." Sol whispered with trepidation as she threw her arms wide. Nothing horrified Ranma like this technique. It felt like staying on a brink of the abyss of non-existence. Err just a bit, overdo it just a little, and you'll gain a beautiful gravestone over an empty grave and the forever loving memories of your comrades.

A blinding torch of solar plasma flared where Sol stood, rapidly expanding until it touched the knight. At this moment Sol's technique went awry. The wall containing it in burst, and the blinding flame swelled outwards gaining freedom, rising up to the sky, swallowing the knight. Then it rushed outwards like a tide, rolling over the panically running Senshi, evaporating the snow and melting the rock.

"G-good thing we are fire-p-proof," Venus noted with a nervous laugh as she straightened pulling her shaking arms away from her face.

"Idiot! Brainless moron!" Iris snapped through tears of horror as she rushed frantically to her soulmate, barely visible through the rolling steam laying unmoving on the glowing, red-hot ground.

"What happened?" Jupiter asked Mercury. The air was full of steam and some strange, chemical-like stench. That, in addition to a different stench that was coming from the pile of winter clothing burning with a thick black smoke.

"Her technique failed partially," Mercury explained absent-mindedly, busy with scanning. "The part that calls forth the solar flame worked, the part that gives it form didn't. Both barriers, the outer one and the inner one, were disrupted when the outer one came into contact with the X-factor zone.

"So she hit herself?" Venus exclaimed, horrified as she remembered how the Sol's ultimate technique worked: a tiny bubble of safety in the very heart of a scorching conflagration.

"Don't worry." Mercury hurried to reassure her. "We're able to survive almost three seconds in the top layers of sun. She interrupted her technique faster than that.

Meanwhile Iris ran up to her spouse, fearing the worst. Scooping the limp girl up from the red-hot ground, she slapped at the burning end of the rear bow's ribbon, and hurriedly carried the redhead away. She strained her senses trying to feel a heartbeat.

Sol jerked wheezing and shuddering in a coughing fit. This made Iris cry tears of joy. "You idiot, my dear idiot," she whispered lovingly, both the battle and the enemy forgotten at the moment.

"Where is... the enemy...?" the worn Sailor Moon squeezed out trudging up to Mercury. "Did we... win?"

"No!" the other girl shouted. "The X-factor is sixty percent of its registered maximum and rising!" She pointed at somewhere in the sky hidden with rolling steam. "There! Approximately at a hundred meters, hovers in one place!"

"I wonder, how much of his charge," Mars asked gloomily, "he spent to topple these mountains?" She had a very bad feeling.

"Approximately three percent," Mercury replied no less gloomily as she paged through the records of the early stages of their battle.

Making sure the stunned Sol begins to come to her senses, Iris took a small rock — twenty kilograms at most — and concentrated directing her senses upwards. It didn't take a long time for her to locate the blind spot, and she threw the rock with a loud shout.

"He's moving erratically!" exclaimed Mercury. "Descending! Falling...?"

The tumbling knight suddenly appeared from the steamy murk. Slamming into the ground he bounced a few times then rolled straight at Sailor Moon. She eeped backpedaling frantically, stumbled and landed on her posterior. In the last possible moment she stopped the rolling opponent with her feet, which left her bare-footed. After that she fled like a frightened rabbit, sometimes running and sometimes crawling on all fours, all the while exclaiming "Ouch!"

"It's just stupid," Sol grumbled as she stood up carefully feeling herself. "He's super-strong. He's invulnerable. And you could shoot him down with a rock."

"Be thankful you can shoot him down at all!" Iris angrily rebuffed her while searching for a suitable boulder to continue the usual routine.

"Seventy!" Mercury exclaimed in despair. "And something has changed in the zone surrounding him!"

The knight started standing up. Iris launched a boulder. The huge rock rebounded from an invisible barrier, thrown back with triple the strength. They had to dodge as it zipped past them hitting the slope a bit higher up to explode in stone shrapnel and a cloud of dust like an artillery shell.

The beam with plasma jets appearing from somewhere, the knight began rising again.

"Dammit!" Sol grit her teeth as she summoned a ball of plasma. Her magical gift was concussed by the feedback from the disrupted ultimate technique, even a simple exertion of her magic caused a raw pain to resonate through her spirit. "Solar Blaze!" The powerful ball of searing plasma hit the rising enemy like a pellet hitting an elephant.

Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Neptune — they all followed her example attacking with their remaining strength. A pale shadow of the previous barrage died against the menacing figure rising up into the sky. The tired out sailor-suited warriors hit it again. And one more time. They had no strength left.

"Seventy five and rising," Mercury reported, her voice crestfallen. A half hundred meters down the slope Sailor Moon followed the rising enemy with her eyes, her scepter having long ago vanished to where it comes from. She too had nothing left.

"Hotaru-chan!" everyone turned at the Neptune's desperate voice. Saturn, her halberd in hand, was stepping forward. There was an aura of violet light rising around her, a ghostly wind ruffling her hair. Her seifuku underwent some ominous changes: the standard shoulder pads transformed into something resembling flower petals, not unlike the decorative wings of Sol. But the most striking feature was her sailor crystal, now pointy and multi-pointed, glinting in her bow like a crystalline sea urchin. "Don't do it, Hotaru-chan!" Neptune begged her hopelessly.

"What... What's wrong?" Sol squeezed out trying to catch her breath.

"She has awakened her true power..." replied Neptune, her voice catching from despair. "If she strikes, her life..." She squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking out. A rictus of grief distorted her face. Pluto, then Uranus. Now her daughter, the last of their family, was leaving her. The pain of loss growing stronger than she could stand the green-haired Senshi curled on the rocky ground, wailing quietly, deaf to everything around her.

The creepy knight talked for the second time: "A Judgment Day angel? So you seriously hope this would allow you to banish me?" He crossed his arms as he hung there bobbing, supported by his plasma jets. "We'll see."

"Gods damn it!" Sol growled trying to force her plasma beam through pain. A tiny flame gathered between her hands wobbling unstably before sputtering out. "Just a minute longer, I would recover enough!" She glanced back at Saturn who took a ready stance with her halberd. A suicidal ultimate technique, both a gift and a curse, was something he could sympathize with, having his own one. The sight of Neptune crushed with grief made Sol to think even more desperately searching for a solution. There should be something she could...

Then it hit her.

"Wait! Where are you going!" Iris shouted out in panic when a radiant aura suddenly enveloped Sol as the fiery-haired Senshi dashed towards Saturn who've already swung her halberd back, enveloped in her own aura of purple and dread. Sol managed in the last possible moment to grab on the other girl's shoulder, their auras flaring brightly at the point of contact.

A split second later Saturn let go of a torrent of destructive energy lashing from the halberd blade like a violet lightning bolt.

The world shook. The sailor-suited warriors froze for a moment, paralyzed by the proximity to such a charge of decay and ruin, the very essence of death, that lashed past them. Both Sol and Saturn collapsed. Saturn was barely breathing, bluish-pale, burned-out and unconscious but alive. Sol hissed writhing in agony and coughing up blood.

"What did you do?" asked Iris as she ran up to them, beside herself from worry. But the words she heard in reply made her falter in despair:

"Still not enough," the knight commented hanging in the same place, in the same pose.

"Forty three percent and rising," Mercury reported with a sob of despair. She put her computer away deactivating her visor. "So, this is it?" She lifted her eyes towards the enemy, then called upon her full yet reserves. "Mercury Aqua Rhapsody!" She grabbed a harp of ice out of the thin air. The jets of icy water snaked up, emerging from nowhere and disappearing into nowhere. Jupiter struck one more time, with the last remains of her strength. Nobody else was able to move, only Iris stood throwing a ki blast after ki blast growling in rage. These vanished the same as the magic blasts. Mercury supported her as long as she could before collapsing onto her knees, spent.

"And that's all?" the knight asked looking left and right. There was still no slightest hint of emotion in his voice despite the tone of his phrasing. "Quite regrettable." He started descending.

"I'll show you regrettable!" yelled Iris. "Thunder Hammer!" She too was beginning to tire, even the Senshi regeneration was no match for her hurricane expenditure of ki. "Thunder Hammer! Take that! Thunder Hammer!"

"I won't let you..." Sailor Moon whispered lifting to her feet with a supreme effort. She made a few steps forward not noticing the sharp rocks biting into her bare feet anymore. "We will all return home together..." A ball gown rolled down like a wave replacing her seifuku. "We will graduate the school, together..." Light shone between her cupped palms forming a small, multi-faceted gem. "And we will eat ice cream and fool around..." The light flared filling her with brilliant glow. "And you, guys, will yet attend my wedding..." Her hair turned silver instantly growing back over the bald spot and forming an odango. "I beg you, Silver Crystal..."

The knight turned around, so sharply he almost lost his balance. His entire posture changed from that of disdain into a live illustration of shocked disbelief.

"A reality warper?" his voice was still even and emotionless. "Wait, you can't do that. It's too dangerous, stop it. The incompatible continuums may..."

A beam of purest silver light flowed forth washing over the knight... An irresistible force of the strongest magic focus in the galaxy met an immovable obstacle of alien metaphysics. Two fundamental forces mutually impossible to exist relatively to each other came into contact.

The space-time didn't quite get the joke. It burst asunder under the onslaught of _un_possible contradictions.

The sky shattered fragmenting like a broken mirror. The ground fell away from under their feet. Everything around them was flooded with blinding light and blinding darkness. The mechanical voice of Ahs thundered, stuttering and repeating itself, trying to report of some or other failures before it finally stuck repeating "Error...! Error...! Error...!". That was the last thing they heard before plummeting into a black vortex that quenched their consciousness.

Only the mysterious knight continued to hang in a timeless nothingness surrounding him as the ruptured space-time fell from under his feet. Only rare lines of code that ran his universe flashed by him from time to time.

"This... complicates everything," he concluded wile absent-mindedly scratching the back of his helmet with his armored fingers.

(シーンブレイク)

January 06, 2011 - March 29, 2012. Translated (mostly) January 29, 2011


	11. Up the Creek without a Paddle

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**ATTENTION!** This fic was retconned undergoing some significant changes. I strongly recommend anyone who started reading it before this eleventh chapter was out to re-read the first chapter into which I crammed all the major changes for your convenience!

**Arc Two  
Dive into the Unknown**

_An adventure of sorts, but still routine. Monotonously routine. (...) Landing accidents, meteorite and radiation attacks — adventures of the body, merely physical stuff._·

_Arcady and Boris Strugatsky, "Prisoners of Power" _

**Chapter 11  
Up the Creek without a Paddle**

Akane was awoken to consciousness by a trembling of earth and a long, rolling rumble. An earthquake! She jerked frantically, not yet fully aware of who she was, where she was... Her consciousness was returning slowly, sluggishly. Her brain felt like it was wrung out then hung in the sun to dry. She shut her eyes tightly then blinked a few times trying to clear blinding haze out. Lifting off the ground awkwardly on one elbow, she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. It was bright and cold here... Or hot? Or both at the same time? What was this strange place? How did she get here? She dimly remembered a blinding flash, but after that...?

She remembered the battle and it made her jump to her feet. Or try to. Her coordination haven't returned yet, she fell onto her side. There was a strange chill in her entire body, reminding of times of sickness. The last she remembered was Usagi... No, Princess Serenity smiting the enemy with her incredible power... Did they win? Or...?

The realization that she is laying naked on the cold and wet rocks hit her like a bucket of ice water. However muddled her mind was, she remembered the fate of their set of spare winter clothing clearly. They prepared it for exactly such an occasion — but it burned down. Panicking, Akane jumped to her feet. She fell, rose back on all fours... And froze in confusion. Her eyes were growing accustomed to the light revealing a familiar panorama: the snowy tops of the ridge, the black pyramid in the central sector of the gash made by Saturn... A sea of green behind it all... Something was terribly wrong with this picture. And why did her back feel so hot? She tried again to stand up, slowly and carefully. After a couple tries she succeeded. Swaying unsteadily she took a stupefied look around.

The snow-covered slope stretched left and right for several hundred meters. Then it ended abruptly, and further away there was only green, as far as eye could see. She almost fell a couple times, then her sense of balance returned and she realized what was so wrong. The slope wasn't a slope anymore, it became horizontal! Akane turned to and from looking around. It seemed that a chunk of the mountain ridge, from the tops to approximately the bottom, has been uprooted and then deposited somewhere among forested hills. The ground trembled again, a column of dust rising at the edge of the former mountainside. A wave of deep, rolling rumbling washed over her. Still in stupefaction, Akane flexed her shoulders and stared into the bright blue sky shielding her eyes with a palm from the hot tropical sun. So they were whisked away together with a chunk of... They!

"Ranmaaa! Guys!"

She panicked looking around frantically for her comrades. She didn't see anybody and her heart fell... Then her mind freed itself, at last, from that murk. She noticed not far away a nude girl body with a mane of red hair sprawled among some rags.

"Ranma‼！" Akane rushed to him, still unsteady on her feet. She didn't even notice how she got there, falling to her knees in haste beside him, feeling for the pulse... Was he alive? He was‼！ Shedding tears of relief she started shaking the other girl. Finally Ranma mumbled unintelligibly blinking owlishly.

"Nngh... What..."

"Are you all right? Oh, what a relief! You're alive!"

"Akane?" recognition slowly appeared in the redhead's eyes. "What happened... And why are you naked...? And..." She looked at the sun in zenith squinting and covering her eyes awkwardly with one hand. "And why I can't feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"Sun..." Ranma frowned rubbing at her temples. "Feels like all my magical senses went deaf."

Akane listened to herself. She realized suddenly that it was the same for her. It was like a part of her ability to see and feel just disappeared.

"It's probably an anti-magic zone like the one in Tokyo... Listen, we were transferred to some tropical land together with the whole mountain. We have to find the others!"

"The others?" the redhead perked up finally shaking cobwebs from her mind. "Right. Princess, the guys..." She took her first good look around. "What the hell...?" She froze for a moment, dumbfounded. "We really got transferred..." Her eyes caught on something, making her smile in joy. "Hey, it's my shirt! The one that disappeared back in Tokyo!" She grabbed her red Chinese silk shirt from the ground quickly putting it on. "And my boxers! And my pants! And my henshin pen...?"

Sparing a moment from worrying about her spouse, Akane finally recognized these 'rags' were the clothing they wore before transforming. It has returned, even if scattered around. Realizing that she was walking around in her birthday suit, Akane hurried to the spot where she woke up. She was relieved to find all her clothing scattered around, even the parka and other winter articles. Her henshin pen was here too, as well as her communicator — both intact but unresponsive. Akane quickly got dressed lamenting that a wrap miniskirt and a designer blouse were far from an ideal attire for a rescue operation in the wilderness. But she had little to choose from. Despite the cold seeping from the rocky ground, she couldn't walk around in winter clothing: the sun here was positively scorching. After a thought she donned the warm boots: she didn't feel like walking bare-footed across the freezing-cold rocks.

They hastily combed the area finding Ami laying unconscious amidst her scattered clothing. There was also the Mercury computer and a lot of small appliances of which they recognized only a video camera. Surmising that Mercury kept it all in her subspace pocket, Ranma thoroughly turned away and hurried to comb further leaving Akane to dress the unconscious girl.

But they didn't find anyone else, only some disturbing anomalies. There were five small chunks of foreign landscape cut into the former mountain slope, ranging from a hole filled with tree branches to a miniature swamp. Approximately where they last saw their comrades in arms. And a huge circle of high grass, one and a half their height, with a half of some baobab at its edge, surrounded by a ring of crushed rock. It's where their Princess was.

"Don't have to wonder," Ranma said grimly as she kicked at a pile of dry sand. "They were scattered far and wide. And no clues how to get them back."

"Maybe Ami could figure something out?" suggested Akane. "I wonder where we are? I hope we're still on Earth? Or...?"

The first pterodactyl to fly by told them that 'or'.

They didn't talk about the invincible knight. But the very fact of his existence weighed heavily on them. If he survived, if he returns, they had nothing to oppose him. Leaving Akane to watch Ami until she wakes up, Ranma went exploring around the edge of their 'island' in search for cover. She didn't find anything of use there, only a sheer drop of fifty meters in average. Beyond it there was a sea of jungle stretching uniformly up to the horizon shrouded in a moist haze. She didn't risk getting down: the cliff edge was in perpetual collapsing causing small earthquakes. Get buried in such a landslide and not even Ryouga could dig you up. The rock avalanches were of impressive proportions, as if the whole rocky massif cracked during transition losing its integrity.

Jumping away timely as cracks snaked under her feet, Ranma walked back dusting her shirt from the dust the avalanche spat up at her. They could always take the risk of diving into the jungle, she decided. But better leave it as a last option. The snow was starting to melt where the haywire technique of Sailor Sol didn't get to it. Small streamlets gurgled between the rocks. Combing the whole 'island' Ranma didn't find anything of notice, only a broken assault rifle without a magazine inherited from Minako. She didn't risk getting close to the pyramid, leaving it to after Ami wakes up.

They spent half a hour waiting in tense silence: cold water didn't wake Ami up but they weren't willing to resort to more radical methods. Ranma meanwhile tied her hair back into her trademark pigtail. The enemy did not return and the two girls relaxed a bit although they still watched around. At last Ami regained her consciousness. They quickly brought her up to date with the recent events hoping she would think of a way to return their missing comrades. First thing Ami reached for the Mercury computer. But the magi-tech gadget refused to work. With rising frustration she went through all her appliances but these were either burned out or useless in regards to the problem at hand.

She examined the intrusions of alien landscape and her expression became grim. "If it took for me that long to regain consciousness..." She poked at a mix of dirt and natant plants with a stick, revealing dirty water under this relatively thin layer. "Many of them could have already fallen victims to the environment... Or to predators... I'm letting everyone down, do I?"

"Don't fret," Ranma reassured her. "They are seasoned gals, they won't die that easily. Let's check the pyramid for now, maybe we'll find something useful there."

(シーンブレイク)

Minako came to struggling in something stinky and sticky. With a sick, harrowing horror she realized that her nude body was being squeezed by something long and writhing‼！ The deafening shriek of fear and outrage sent each bird for kilometers around flying. The hot-shot blond started thrashing like woman possessed, then she bit down on the disgusting tentacle growling and shaking her head from side to side like a bulldog.

The giant boa swam away in panic, traumatized for the rest of its life. It won't try hunting anything like that, ever! Crocodiles are much safer.

Minako was gulping air in big, shuddering breathes, hanging onto branches of a tree rising from the swamp. A tree with a straight, slippery trunk without a single branch for ten meters or so below her. "I wonder how did I get here?" she asked aloud. "And where's everyone?"

(シーンブレイク)

"Stop worrying about them so much," Ranma tried to convince Ami for an umpteenth time. "They'll be fine! Let's check if there's a hidden door or something."

The black pyramid turned out a dead end and a complete disappointment. They approached it hopefully at first, watching the enormous sharp-pointed edifice warily. A good third of Tokyo Tower in height, it rested on a flat pillow of gravel. Alas, beyond the modest arched entrance the size of a good gate, there was only an empty hall. Granted, a perfect mirror for floor looked impressive creating a dizzying kaleidoscopic effect as it reflected the faceted dome made of similar perfect mirrors. It took them some time to realize what this weird space was. But the novelty quickly wore off leaving them with an empty round hall some fifteen meters across. It was many times smaller than the base of the pyramid and it was useless for the only thing that mattered to them: getting their comrades back.

"There's nothing here," replied Ami with a patient sigh as she rapped methodically at one of flat mirrors that closed six out of seven arched depressions sunk into the half-spherical dome. "Not a slightest response, it feels solid."

"All these arches have to lead somewhere," Ranma insisted without much conviction or hope. They were arguing this over for a third or fourth time, their investigation going in circles.

"I can film this hall on the video camera if you want." The frustration in Ami's voice was starting to become apparent. "These mirrors reflect any sonic waves. If something gets through, it's below the resolution of the tools at hand. The same for light, at all wave lengths. And there are no weak points, you told it yourself."

Ranma had to agree. Wherever these blocked arches led — and there was enough room for dozens of such halls inside the pyramid — they had no way to know. Whatever these mirrors were made of, Ranma and Akane couldn't even scratch their perfect, unmarred surface. For ki senses the world ended at this surface, as if there was an infinite, silent void beyond the thin film of mirror. It was quite disconcerting and creepy to try feeling chi flows from inside the hall: the overall effect was a spiritual equivalent of a dead silence of a deep crypt.

And yet the pyramid was anything but a dead, passive object. During the transition of their rocky massif the former vertical tilted about thirty degrees. The humongous construct reoriented itself and stood now perfectly straight feigning inertness. But the ring of gravel surrounding it told otherwise. The solid rock had been ground to fine pieces by the motion of the pyramid's underground part. It could very well happen to be the strange knight's starship, especially considering the fact his armor was composed of similar invulnerable mirrors.

"I'm ready to start undermining it," Ranma muttered in a fit of temper. It was like grabbing at straws, actually: no one of them knew techniques allowing to dig through such a flowing substance as gravel with only their bare hands. The Crushing Point was useless here.

"What a piggery!" Ranma kicked at the insurmountable mirror. "Ooff..." Doing that, purely out of frustration, wasn't the smartest thing. The mirror surfaces negated any effects of ki at the point of contact, resulting in an unprotected human flesh propelled by ki-reinforces muscles hitting an unyielding wall. One could really hurt himself here.

"I doubt that would help," said Ami not even noticing she began to turn into Captain Obvious.

"I know, I know," Ranma grumbled rubbing at her bruised hand. "We're like flies in a jar here, could only wait until someone comes and swats us."

Ami pulled out her computer renewing the hopeless attempts to resurrect it. The machine was nominally alive but displayed some boot error related to magic sensors. She closed the useless gadget in frustration. "I wish I just could open a portal to where my friends are!" The quiet girl felt like banging her head against a wall.

"Invalid coordinates," a melodic mechanical voice echoed through the hall startling all the three girls. "Repeat your input through your personal portable interactor or speak a voice formula aloud preceding it with your code phrase."

"What... What was that?" Akane asked with some fear glancing around.

"That's it!" Ranma snapped her fingers. "Ami got to be this, er, ahs-lord just like us! Hey, Akane, you're probably too! That's why the three of us remain here while the others are scattered around!"

"What ahs-lord?" Akane asked, confused.

"Well, remember what that bastard told us?" Ranma reminded her. "The system will not deign to reply to anyone but them! Ahs-seven Tkhachshchas Eet-suht, open the portal a kilometer above us!"

"Your command open portal is rejected," the mechanical voice replied her. "Safety condition seven. Unacceptably low distance to this transport node."

"Then..." Ranma didn't give up, inspired by her success. " Ahs-seven Tkhachshchas Eet-suht, open the portal ten kilometers above us!"

"Attention, opening a portal in aperture five," the mechanical voice raised her hopes. "Warning, security condition forty three. Unacceptable atmospheric pressure difference."

"Idiot‼！" yelled Akane as she grabbed Ami and tore towards the exit. "It'll suck us in like a vacuum cleaner!"

"You think so?" Ranma asked nervously glancing round.

Akane didn't make it. The air rushed towards her like a resilient wall, its force pushing her across the slippery floor... The next instant it cut off, the entrance arch opening covered with a rainbow membrane similar in appearance to that of a soap bubble.

"Safety mechanisms employed according to protocol forty three," the mechanical voice noted dispassionately.

"You see? Everything's fine..." Ranma squeaked nervously as she backed away from her wife advancing on her like a storm cloud. "Look, it did open a portal!" She pointed at an arch behind her back where, beyond a similar membrane, one could see a deep blue sky, a faraway horizon and clouds floating far down below. Akane snorted like an angry bull releasing her rage in two puffs from her nostrils. But her curiosity proved stronger. She carefully approached the portal and took a look down, careful to not touch the opalescent barrier. Deep down there, below clouds, there was a sea of jungle looking dark blue from up here. She could even see the edge of their rocky 'island'.

"See? We broke through!" Ranma proclaimed triumphantly while poking at the opalescent membrane which yielded resiliently under her finger. "Now Ami will figure this system out in no time... Right, Ami?" She turned around to the girl in question. Distracted, she only had time to eep when the membrane gave under her finger jumping up her hand to the wrist. The atmospheric pressure difference did the rest, pulling suddenly at the redhead's hand, which made her suffer the shame of losing her balance. When her body touched the membrane she was ejected forcibly like a cork from an over-pressured bottle.

"Ranma-kun!" Ami gasped.

"Don't worry," Akane reassured her. "Ki works here, he'll be fine. This will teach him to think what he's doing next time!"

"Bugger," grumbled Ranma as she shielded her eyes with one arm against the freezing wind. "I just had to make such a fool of myself!" She rolled face up throwing her arms wide and enjoying the view of the deep blue stratospheric sky. "A blunder of lifetime... Now I have to fall for hell knows how long, to be ridiculed when I land." She pouted scringing from the cold. "What's most vexing, I asked for it!"

She quickly grew bored with falling so she flipped face down trying to get a good look around despite the onrushing air threatening to freeze her eyelids shut. There was nothing down there. No mountains at the horizon, no sea, no noticeable rivers — just the endless sea of jungle and the rough circle of rock with a black seed of the pyramid in its center.

It took a long time before she plunged through the cloud layer.

(シーンブレイク)

Sitting on the thin branches was uncomfortable. Various blood-sucking insects didn't give her time to grow bored either. At least her back was covered by that ungodly mess her waist-length hair turned into. Minako sadly had to give up the idea of braiding it before it caught on something. She needed two free hands and a more reliable perch for that.

Glancing around she finally noticed down below her parka sunk into the mess of rotting plants by her and boa's thrashing. The parka promised at least a partial respite from the mosquitoes pestering her so Minako started looking for a way to get down safely. She didn't want to jump from ten meters high into a swamp of unknown depth. Who knew what snags could be hidden under the surface?

Her plans were scratched out by a ridgy back parting the plant carpet lazily not that far from her tree.

"I'd better be eaten alive by mosquitoes rather than a crocodile," decided the blond as she slapped energetically at an another blood-sucker. "I'll endure it up here until our girls come to the rescue..." Her expression darkened as she remembered how many days it took for Ami to find Sol and Akane and build a working portal to Jadeite's world. "I'll die on this tree and crocodiles will have to settle for my dried up mummy! Waitaminute, did something glint down there?"

Her henshin pen floated there, almost completely hidden by leaves. Minako immediately perked up.

"Hah, here's my escape! Venus doesn't fear any crocodiles. Plus I'll be able to swing between the trees like Tarzan!" She began carefully climbing down scraping her hands and knees on the rough bark and barely holding. Roughly halfway down she lost her grip anyway, splashing down into the swamp back first. She barely managed to surface scrambling through the mess of floating plants. She began feeling around in panic blinking away the dirty swamp water until finally managed to find her henshin pen. She smirked at the approaching ridgy back. "You think breakfast is served? Wait and see who's the boss in this swamp!"

The transformation phrase fell empty, devoid of power. The henshin-pen didn't respond turning out to be a dead, useless bauble.

"Or not..."

The crocodile was rapidly approaching.

(シーンブレイク)

Amortizing her fall with a ki blast fired at the ground the slightly chilly Ranma finished her ten-kilometer fall without any problems. To her immense relief Akane was together with Ami, fully concentrated on some thingy. It seemed there would be no ridiculing. Ranma approached quietly, trying not to attract attention.

"No, this button returns you back. For zooming in, use that one," Ami was explaining patiently. "They have the same effect only because your last action was zooming out."

"What do you have here?" the redhead asked the girls bent over an unknown object.

"Don't distract me!" Akane waved her away irritably. "So which one zooms out, you say?"

Ranma looked over her wife's shoulder. The thing turned to be a hybrid of a medallion and something akin to Mercury computer. A round brass-colored medallion the size of a palm with a massive hinge and a thick chain was opened revealing the bottom half stuffed with buttons while the top half glowed greenish color.

"This one," Ami repeated patiently touching a brass-colored button marked with black kanji so filigreed they were almost invisible. "It's even titled 'panorama scale'."

Akane looked closer. "You'd need a microscope to read all of this! What would I do if I have to work it while running...?！ All right, moving on."

"This one," Ami continued poking at an another button, "moves your view across the map. It's proportional to the zoom scale, so you have to master using both modifiers to operate the map." She demonstrated this by pushing big buttons with arrows on them taking the edges of the circular keyboard. Ranma managed to glimpse a web of hair-thin black lines flickering on the glowing inner surface of the lid before the irate Akane punted her away, annoyed by her intruding presence.

"And here is the most important one," concluded Ami. "The cancellation button that reverts everything to the initial state. Remember it for a case when you lose your way through the functions or press a wrong button. Press it enough times and you'll return to the initial mode."

"It's labeled 'renunciation'," commented Akane with a sigh squinting at the barely discernible kanji. "I'd like to know who was the joker that... All right, open it!"

Ami took the medallion from her hands and started tapping something rapidly with two fingers, as deftly as she usually did using the Mercury computer.

"What' with you and stuff—" Ranma indignantly cut in as she returned from the point of her landing.

"Quiet, don't interfere!" hissed Akane silencing her.

Could it be she's simply mocking me subtly instead of ridiculing openly? thought Ranma.

One of the arches blazed with light opening with a quiet pop into some extremely well lit place. The mirror hall was instantly flooded with light and heat.

"Let's go!" Akane shouted at the redhead as she took the medallion from Ami's hands. "The portal won't stay open for long!"

"Don't worry," Ami tried to reassure her. "The limit is half a hour."

"Exactly!" retorted Akane with the same energy as she hastily exited the arch filled with light. "If we fail to fit in that limit, we'll be stuck there forever, cut off from everyone. R-r-ranma, are you coming or are you growing roots there?"

The redhead hastily followed her, jumping out of the portal to wherever it led. She found herself in a desert. A desert full of such a white and sparkly sand that her eyes hurt. The light was blinding. Her feet started baking through the thin soles of her kung-fu slippers. Well, she endured worse. Ranma shielded her eyes from the scorching sun with a palm, squinting. Akane was climbing up a barchan(note 1) so snow white it was painful to look at. She was casting glances at the medallion trying to poke there which almost made her lose her balance on the free-flowing slope.

"Where are you going?" the redhead avowed her concern. It was good for Akane in her warm winter boots, the heat couldn't reach through those easily.

"One of us is there." Akane gestured fiercely in the direction of the top of the barchan the size of a small mountain range. "Five kilometers away. If we won't make it back in a half-hour, we're stuck here forever! Got that?"

"So you've found a way to find them?" Ranma exclaimed in joy rushing after her up the flowing sand that sucked her efforts like it would water. She instantly met an unpleasant surprise: ki here... Well, it worked somehow. But she would be barely able to jump two meters up. If she stood on a flat firm surface. She had to forget about scaling the mountain of sand in one go.

Akane was fiercely tearing up the endless slope showing no mercy to herself. It proved not so easy to catch up with her.

They both were huffing as they emerged on the crest of the ridge. The sweat wasn't rolling down, it kept drying up faster than it appeared. Akane without delay ran down the much gentler slope. The sand seemed more firm here. Ranma lingered to take a good look around shielding her eyes with a palm and squinting at the bright light. Just as she thought. She ran after Akane, it again took her some time to catch up with the other girl.

"Turn to the left!" she shouted. "To the left, I tell you!"

"She is there!" Akane pointed stubbornly with her hand. "I got a good bearing!"

"And the next ridge is lower there!" Arguing while running full tilt was exhausting. "We'll lose less time!"

Akane finally troubled herself with looking where she was going as she shielded her eyes on the run. Without saying a word she turned a bit to the left.

"Conserve your strength," added the redhead. "Ki doesn't work here."

"I know, I'm not blind," Akane breathed out through her teeth. She glanced into the medallion and pushed faster, setting a totally exhausting pace. "Time."

There was nothing to counter that. If they get stuck in this desert, they'll most assuredly die. As far as Ranma could see from that top, the barchans stretched to the horizon.

They reached a saddle where the ends of two adjacent barchans fused together. And again up a free-flowing slope escaping from under their feet. Akane tore upwards frantically trying to climb straight, trying at an angle — either way it was equally slow. But there was the top, at last. Akane almost made it when the sand under her feet slid down in a small avalanche dragging her down while rolling her from side to side and threatening to swallow. She cried out thrashing desperately until she managed to tear free and jump onto her feet after which she slid three more meters down. The redhead winced in sympathy: the sand was so hot it hurt to touch it, while her wife haven't bothered to change out of the mini-skirt into something more suitable for the desert. Now she also had sand in her boots and other wrong places.

Uttering a quiet curse Akane tore forward again. They climbed over the edge at the safe place that was already collapsed, and continued their extremal race under the direly scorching sun. The flat back slope transited into a hillocky plain of sand, then into a labyrinth of small barchans. The girls had to either meander between these, or climb up their small but still exhaustingly steep faces. Despite the obstacles they quickly reached the next barchan ridge. There was no united wall here so they only had to zig-zag between the ends of adjacent barchans curling towards them. Even across the sand the girls were running faster that most sprinters could across a racing track. But the cost... Ranma was thinking that a pace one third slower, without the pressing need to save a comrade, would make for a good endurance training. Ki this, ki that — you don't even notice as you get accustomed to rely on the spiritual force in everything. It's just that nobody before knew a way to suppress it so completely and uniformly. Hmm, here's an idea. If that zone in Tokyo doesn't resolve itself it would be possible to open a specialized doujo there. For the most advanced masters, to repeat the basics.

Tthey passed the third ridge, and the fourth, and the fifth. The pain in their abused muscles alone would be enough to fell a common mortal. Both were rasping for air, their throats dry. Sun was burning them from above, its heat reflecting off the white sand below that burned their feet through the shoes. Akane was frowning more and more as she kept glancing at the tiny screen of the medallion. The sixth ridge was rising ahead, solid and even like a wall, with no discernible passes. They began climbing it. Akane growled in anger pushing herself mercilessly. Ranma kept even with her, she had a gut feeling that their fate hung on a rapidly thinning thread. They had yet to travel back, encumbered. The sand indifferently drank their efforts. The slope kept stretching forever.

Finally they were over the crest. Akane stopped for a second, rasping for air. She opened the medallion and started pressing buttons missing with her shaking fingers. Then she slammed it shut emitting a hiss of joy: they couldn't talk anymore. She rushed forward with a new strength, turning to the right. Ranma got it: they've made it! Now just grab the girl and—

Akane stumbled losing her balance in surprise and falling face first into the scorching-hot sand. With a brief hiss, she jumped onto her feet to just stand there looking left and right helplessly along a track of fuzzy, formless footprints.

Ranma looked closely, then gestured to their left. Akane croaked something unintelligible but clearly unflattering about their lost comrade: the tracks were leading further away! They ran like girls possessed. The sand ended, replaced by an uneven rocky plain. The dark ground was hotter than the white sand, there was a very dense heat haze rising above it. The rescuers separated without saying a word: this murk could hide an elephant a hundred steps away. They kept close but still barely saw each other as blurry, wavering spots. Despair stepped closer, clutching at their hearts: what if she fell and is lying down? They'd never spot her amidst the uneven terrain littered with rocks!

They were moving too slowly, straining their vision until their eyes hurt. Time was running out.

Akane rushed to the right with a croak of joy. Ranma ran after her, but her wife emerged out of the haze going back, subdued. She saw things. They returned, as much as they could tell, to their previous course. With each passing second their resolve to die but not give up was close to the reality as merciless as the sun here.

They came together. An untrained girl couldn't have possibly went as far while they were running from the portal. Ranma wanted to ask why not determine the lost girl's position the same way they found it the first time? But she saw Akane clutching the medallion in her fist with impotent anger. She swallowed her words. Not that either of them could talk, but still.

They ran back, faster now, separating further so they could barely guess each other's position. Ranma saw something moving. She almost ignored it: everything was moving here. The oppressively sweltering air streamed and wavered, making even the horizon twist in a slow, viscous dance.

But still she turned to check. She felt an indescribable relief when a small figure finally materialized, clad in winter clothing. The lost one was trudging perpendicularly to her previous direction. The redhead quickly caught up with her. The girl was swaying like drunk, the long raven hair hanging on one side from under her hood looked gray, peppered with thin white dust. Ranma quickly grabbed Rei and ran back orienting somehow by the sun that hung almost in the zenith. The rescued one started thrashing at first, then she recognized Ranma and allowed herself to lose consciousness. Ranma just grunted in displeasure: it was suddenly harder to carry the limp girl. She threw her over her shoulder like a sack and ran with all her might. There was the sand, at last. Her feet started sinking deeply under the double weight, the desert didn't want to release its prey. And where's Akane?

Akane ran out of the haze-enshrouded rocky plain. She lost Ranma, she was disoriented and confused by the mockingly complex mechanism. The desert where they hid from Jadeite was never this hot, even in the worst noon hours. Touching her own hair was painful, her dark blouse turned into a tool of torture. Not that her bare arms and legs fared better. She was about to dive back into the haze to search for Ranma when she noticed the redhead bearing someone slung over her shoulder running heavily up the flat slope of the sand mountain. They did it! Rasping and stumbling, Akane ran after them.

Ranma simply slid down. She'd prefer much faster rolling head over heels but she didn't want to hurt the unconscious girl. And again the exhausting run across the sand. And down again in a barely controlled slide. Her head was throbbing with heat, her vision swimming, her muscles protesting shrilly. How many sand ridges to go? She didn't even notice when Akane managed to sweep Rei from her arms, but running became a bit easier. Then she stumbled over a fallen Akane. She scooped Rei up and ran forward. She wished dearly to stop and help her wife up, but time, time! There was none. She had to convince herself that Akane will surely regain her strength and catch up to her. And she did, some indeterminable time later. Croaking something she pulled at Ranma's sleeve. Ranma looked around unsteadily, there was a red haze obscuring her vision. Ah, their own footprints. Must keep to. She turned a bit to the right. Why did this slope stretch so long.

Akane opened the medallion. She took one glance. Emitting a rasp of despair she fell down to her knees, limp and dispirited.

It was over.

Ranma continued running forward. Partly from stubbornness, partly because she became too dumb to realize it, as her brain was beginning to shutting down. Here's the crest. She plowed over it landing on her ass and sliding down in a heap of sand. The sensitive spot was hurting from the compound touch of the sand and her black pants that got too hot in the sun. But that was such a triviality. The portal at the base of the sand mountain looked weird, like a dark arch-shaped mirror. Ami was shouting something standing with one foot here and her other foot there. The mechanical voice was droning some warning. The redhead made the last dash sliding in the hot quagmire tearing free and sliding again. He didn't remember how he reached the portal. Putting Rei down he turned back, to get his wife. But Ami stopped him with a gesture. Akane was already there, sliding down, rolling from side to side and cussing hoarsely. So she regained her composure, after all.

As soon as the wrongly dressed dark-haired girl fell in through the portal Ami pulled her foot back. The portal closed instantly turning into a mirror. The hall darkened considerably.

Ranma and Akane fell down noisily inhaling the oh so cool air. Ami was telling them something, the mechanical voice droned something, but it went over them. They made it! They saved her!

Five to go.

They preferred not to think about the fate of Uranus. If the Outer forgotten in the heat of battle managed by some miracle to survive that blow, if she wasn't erased by the following cataclysm, then she'll be waiting for them home, on Earth. They hoped that her landing spot was far enough _beyond_·the edge of the transited chunk of landscape. If it wasn't... then thousands tons of rock have already become her tombstone.

(シーンブレイク)

Translated February 05, 2012

**Author's notes:**

**1**  
_Barchan_·is a crescent-shaped sand dune with its horns pointing downwind and a very steep downwind slope. See more at Wikipedia, ｈｔｔｐ：／／ｅｎ。ｗｉｋｉｐｅｄｉａ。ｏｒｇ／ｗｉｋｉ／Ｂａｒｃｈａｎ

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— Orphus users (1 bugs so far)  
— gsteemso


	12. Sick of Fanservice

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 12,  
Sick of Fanservice**

Ranma and Akane were still lying on their backs breathing heavily, wheezily. They weren't showing any reaction to outside stimuli. Totally worn out. Seeing that they were out Ami switched to fussing over Rei. The unconscious girl had an obvious heat stroke. She wiped sweat from her brow. How did these two survive their run? She barely held on while just staying on the threshold. She began hastily unzipping Rei's parka. The hat was missing and the black hair spilled haphazardly on the mirror floor. Good, thought Ami. This floor looks sterile, it's probably the most sterile surface on this planet. There was nothing on Rei under the parka and Ami started worrying about her henshin pen. But there was no time even for such an important thing. To her great relief, she hadn't have time during the hurried preparations to shed her lab coat. It was a synthetic fabric, but still... She ran outside and soaked both sleeves she tore off in a closest pool of melt-water: as the slope stopped being a slope, it lost the natural shape predisposed for water running off of it.

Putting one compress on Rei's forehead she spared a moment for the girls who saved her. Both were still lying on their backs, their chests heaving from labored breathing. Leaving one wet cloth to them she turned back to Rei. Pulling down the thick warm trousers to ease the cooling she found out that the miko managed to keep two items beside the warm clothing: her panties and her henshin pen. The latter was tucked away in her boot. Ami tucked a rolled-up parka under the raven-haired girl's head, covered her modesty with an another strip torn off the lab coat and placed the henshin pen in her hand. Then Ami frowned, worrying. Rei's breathing became even, but... She adjusted the compress. She didn't like the noticeable reddening across the front of Rei's body. It was to early for a sunburn to manifest. Looked more like a result of lying prone on the sand heated by sun.

The sounds of a cloth being sucked upon coming from behind her changed to some sort of struggling. Turning back Ami found the rescuers crawling towards the exit on all fours stumbling and helping each other. She tried to help but both the girls waved her away.

"Muscles're stiff like hell," Ranma explained hoarsely. "Don'tcha worry, we'll work it out."

The crawling girls were wincing and cringing with grimaces of pain. Ami imagined how much they had to be hurting. She felt ill. But as they insisted they'll manage she had no reason to object. She took up the medallion, to avoid wasting time. She was going to pinpoint the location of their next missing comrade. This disaster must not repeat! She has to learn aiming the portal precisely.

The two crawling girls, meanwhile, reached the nearest pool, deep and ice-cold. The sounds of water being slurped up greedily could be heard from a long distance. Akane tried to save her dignity and drink by scooping the water by her palm but her hands were too awkward. She followed her husband's example bending down and lapping right from the pool. The water was teeth-achingly cold and relatively clear.

After drinking her full Ranma crawled into the pool and plopped down here with a groan of delight. They both haven't recovered yet from the withering heat. Akane tried to follow her example but yowled jerking away, then yowled again as her abused muscles spasmed.

"Ack! It's cold!"

"Well, what did you expect?" Ranma turned onto her back enjoying herself. Akane belatedly realized that her blouse will take far longer to dry than the instantly drying silk. In fact, this property of the fabric was why Ranma so loved silk clothing: with his "luck" of getting splashed several times per day it was, probably, the decisive factor.

Akane crawled backwards out of the pool, then carefully sat up.

"Let me rub you," suggested the redhead standing up, still awkwardly but firmly.

"All right," agreed Akane as she stood up too. Her legs ached something horribly. As well as her derriere. "But let's do it in the hall, there's nothing to trow over these rocks."

Helping each other to keep upright they hobbled up to the pyramid, like two cripples. Inside Ami was working her magic on the medallion while keeping one eye on the unconscious Rei lying supine in only her panties and a slip of cloth. Ranma carefully averted her eyes. But the kaleidoscopic nature of the hall was seemingly mocking her: wherever she looked, her eyes met a reflection of either the entrance or one of the girls. A hint here, a fragment there, no matter are you looking up or down. Embarrassed, she hung her head but was vexed to glimpse a reflection of Rei's breast covered by the piece of cloth only from above. The damned mirror floor. Totally flustered, the redhead started fretting. Luckily she noticed Akane trying to pull her blouse off and hurried to help.

Through slow, careful motions and hissing through her teeth they managed to complete this complex action and wring the blouse almost dry. Akane sighed at the sight of a quite expensive thing turned into a worn rag. Then she slowly, like an ancient hag, lowered herself to the floor, into a prone position. She clenched her teeth. Ranma, barely moving herself, began the execution. To Ami this looked like either a torture or an especially brutal wrestling match. Sitting down on the small of her spouse's back, Ranma wrapped herself around her muscular left leg like a boa, squeezing the appendage in the nook of her elbow while at the same time wrenching it sideways. Akane whimpered through her clenched teeth. Ami looked at them over the medallion in worry. Wasn't this technique too extremal? The redhead kept squeezing and wrenching until she pressed her heel into her wife's buttock. Akane kept emitting from time to time half-groaning half-hissing sounds. Then she suddenly noted in a halting voice: "It's strange, the floor is warm."

"More specifically it doesn't have its own temperature," explained Ami, worry evident in her voice. There were tears glinting in the corners of Akane's eyes, her pupils shrunk into dots. She is obviously trying to get some distraction, realized Ami, and it made her shudder. "These surfaces act as a perfect mirror, in other words they are closer to an abstract physical concept than to a matter. Touching them you feel your own body temperature." She turned back to check on Rei. The raven-haired girl was still unconscious lying with her bare back pressed against the said 'abstract physical concept'. It's good the air is cool, thought Ami, to allow enough heat exchange for the recovery from a heat stroke. Otherwise we'd have to carry her outside to lay on the ground, as the floor here acts as a perfect thermal insulator.

Akane yowled. Ami sharply turned to the martial artists. Ranma was done torturing the left leg and sat now wrenching the right one. Akane laid there, her hands outstretched with her fingers in warding gestures telling 'I'm out cold'. Her lips were pursed as if she tried to say 'oo', her eyes rolled up.

"Akane, what's wrong?" the redhead interrupted the torture, worried. "Tell me if it hurts too much!"

The other girl didn't respond.

"Hey, Akane!" Ranma panicked hopping to her wife's head, still awkwardly but swiftly. "Hey! Are you all right!" She slapped slightly at her out cold wife's cheeks.

"Nngh..." Akane's rolled up pupils appeared from under her eyelids, her eyes crossed at first then focusing. Anger distorted her face. "Continue, now! So it's painful, a big deal! Our friends wait for a rescue and here I am, lying immobile!"

The redhead returned to the initial position sitting on the other girl's back and grabbing the leg, there was such a suffering written large on her face like she was forced to beat up infants.

"I, um," Akane added in a quiet voice. "I may yell." Then she barked with a sudden force: "So don't you dare to stop! Got that!"

Ranma sighed heavily as she went working on the leg again. There was no enthusiasm in her movements anymore, just a pure technique.

Akane hissed a couple times like a pinched cat. Ranma eased the pressure. Akane growled, quietly but menacingly. The tortured redhead continued torturing the leg with previous force. Akane held on long and stubbornly but on some problem spot she let out a scream of pure pain. The redhead glanced worriedly but didn't say anything and didn't relent her assault. Akane's breathing was ragged, her fists clenched. Ami saw her pupils were shrunk into dots again. Definitely not good for one's health.

"Hahh... They..." Akane breathed out, "how... long...? Soon...?"

"A few more minutes," replied Ami correctly interpreting the other girl's incoherent babble as a question about her progress on figuring the coordinates of their next missing comrade. "Resources are depleted, we can't afford to aim the portal at an approximate area. I have to improve my methods, to research alternate solutions." She ducked back into her work.

"Good... Aieeeeeee!"

Ranma stopped. "Akane, I know, but..."

"Go... on," the prone girl interrupted her with determination. "Even if I pass out, you go on."

The redhead let out a long, suffering sigh and finished working the leg. Then she turned around and began kneading the bare back crossed with lacy bra straps. Her hands pinched and twisted mercilessly like claws of a bird of prey, with a power that would horrify any normal massage therapist. Alas, the radical hurry called for radical solutions.

Akane made a pitiful squeak and went limp, her head lolling to a side. Ranma continued kneading, grim as a storm cloud. She finished the back, then worked the arms. Finally she carefully rolled her loved one over. Akane's head lolled limply, her eyes were again rolled up. There was a trickle of drool hanging down from her mouth. Ranma carefully slapped her on the cheeks. No reaction. Worried, she grabbed a dried up compress and dashed away in search of a clean pool. It seems the effort of kneading Akane served also to return herself to normal, Ami noted absent-mindedly as she was briefly distracted from her task. Come on, what else... Ah, that's it! She renewed tapping the keys with a tripled vigor as she began compiling the final formula.

When the redhead returned with a fresh compress Akane was already up vigorously squatting and stretching.

"How are you?" asked Ranma trying to hide the worry in her voice.

"You're ge... eee.. nius!" Akane responded merrily, eeping when she made a split. "There's no stiffness, I'm moving absolutely... aieee... freely!" She finished the stretching with an energetic three-meter jump exploding at the top of the apex with a flurry of kicks accompanied with more pained sounds. "The pain is quite tolerable, we can go rescuing!" She turned to Ami questioningly.

"A moment!" Ami's hands fluttering over the keyboard blurred in a rapid motion, sounding more like spilled peas.

"Well, you could trample me for a while," said Ranma laying down face down.

Akane pulled her boots off and went trampling with her bare feet over the prone girl's back and legs putting her entire weight into the kneading and twisting on her toes. The redhead emitted a half-suffering sigh of relief and went limp lying there like a happy jello. Akane kept trampling her unresisting body for awhile, then hoped off.

"How does it happen that you had recovered so easily?" she asked with envy in her voice.

"Pushing yourself way past your limits is an art like any other," replied Ranma in a happily relaxed but still lecturing voice that made Akane bristle a bit. "I'll teach you later..." She let out a sigh, still lying limp like a wet noodle, her cheek against the floor.

"It's ready," said Ami. "Of the five left four are in the same world, this allows us to aim the portal with an error as little as three meters. With the fifth one it's... complicated."

"Go on, open it!" Ranma jumped up to her feet with a suddenness of a jack-in-the-box.

"Here," Ami handed the medallion to Akane. "Press 'affirmation', then..."

"No, I can't!" Akane tried to refuse.

"Too bad," Ami didn't remove her outstretched hand with the medallion. "My account is suspended for the next three days for overdrafting my quota. Any commands from me would be ignored."

"How's that?" Akane grew suddenly alarmed.

"Well, I had prevented the portal from closing by staying in its aperture," Ami reminded her. "The safety system won't allow the portal to close while it crosses a sapient being. But someone have to carry the responsibility for the expended energy. As I understand it, a non-user would be pushed out of the portal plane with a force field of increasing strength. But as I am an Ahs-lord, it was just detracted from my quota..." Then she added under her breath: "The clothing of the sapient beings doesn't count, though."

Ranma was already aware about the naked heel sticking out of a strange hole in Ami's shoe. Now she understood it. She remembered this just in case.

"It's so expensive to open portals?" Akane grew worried. She haven't forgotten that materializing the medallion cost nine tenths of their quotas for _both_·of them.

"No, no," Ami reassured her. "It's because energy consumption of an open portal grows exponentially with time." She quickly tapped something in and placed the medallion in Akane's hand. "Come on, press it. Of the four of them, this one moves quickly, we'll have to correct the position again if you dawdle."

"Moves?" Akane asked with suspicion as she pressed the button. "Why is that?"

"Attention, opening the portal in aperture five," proclaimed the mechanical voice. "Performing correction by the vertical axis with accordance to the protocol thirty eight: the specified cross-section is below the ground level."

The portal opened into a mist-veiled tropical swamp or a sparse mangrove forest. The kaleidoscopic hall replied by turning greener. Akane peeked around leaning out of the portal. Black tree trunks sporting stunted crowns glinted wetly stretching in all directions and disappearing in the humid haze. There was such a rotten stench rising from the mess of floating plants heated by the sun that she recoiled for a moment.

"Well, I don't see..." She fell silent, a disbelieving horror on her face.

"What's wrong?" Ranma instantly grew wary joining her at the portal.

"It's not she who moves quickly," Akane squeezed out swallowing the oncoming tears. "It's the crocodile in whose stomach she is."

A ridgy back flashed again through the green carpet. Ami clasped a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening in horror.

"A moment," Ranma said in a too-even, dead voice. "Just a moment, I'll get this thing..."

"Gee whoa, you beast!" a peppy girl's voice suddenly reached from beyond the portal. "Gee whoa I s-s-aid!"

"Minako-chan?" whispered Akane still not believing her hearing.

"Hah, curiosier and capriciousier," continued the invisible Minako. "Yonder amidst the swamps there stays a mirror. Comes a maiden on her frisky— Gee whoa, will ya...! On her frisky steed, looks at herself n the... Oh the ho-orro-o-or!" Her voice gained a theatrically-overblown exasperation. "Oh my hair! My poor hair! Even a kappa wouldn't look at me with this mop! I could star in a film about the swamp thing!"

"Minako-chan!" Akane shouted in joy as she leaned dangerously out to bend over the portal edge. "We thought a crocodile ate you!"

"Is that safe?" Ranma asked worriedly pointing at Akane pressing her chest to the aperture edge while holding at the wall with her arm. From the inside the portal was placed in a receding arch, but on the outside, as the redhead remembered, it prsented a plane, thin to the point of invisibility, hanging in the air. "Won't she cut herself?" By some reason she couldn't stop remembering Ami's shoe.

"What a relief!" Ami let out a pent up breath, her face practically lighting up. "Um, no. The portal edge is surrounded by a force field, it's like a perfect plane framed with wire a couple millimeters thick. It could only pose danger if you run into it at high speed.

Her worry sated, Ranma leaned out too. But first she carefully feeled the edge. True, it felt like a thin wire.

From the back, the portal presented a mirror. A naked Minako riding a crocodile sat there examining herself in reflection. Ranma boggled, then turned away blushing. She tried to banish the image of the blond out of her mind - to no avail. The hips parted wide straddling the thick neck of the reptile, the feet tucked in so that only the knees touch the water. Some dirty rope stretching to the end of the muzzle clutched in the right hand while the left arm is held high, its elbow to the side while the hand holding the henshin pen lifts the tangled hair making the firm breast to rise enciti...

Ranma recoiled shaking her head in desperation. Well, she herself had a thing or two to flaunt. She herself was adept at a technique of martial dumbfounding known informally as "tit-fu". But being hit so unexpectedly, out of the blue... Who could have known that Minako was practicing there polishing her most lethal techniques? Ranma tried to recover from the blow but failed. These perfect curves, these widely parted hips... ARRRGH!

"I'm a married man, cats claw me!"

Akane growled, quietly but unmistakably.

"I what... I did say that aloud?" asked the redhead, her voice weak.

"There hadn't yet been born a crocodile," Minako's voice reached Ranma whose eyes were shut tightly, "that could devour Aino Minako, the avatar of love! Hey, do you have anything to capture me for posterity? I so want a memento of my greatest triumph."

"I don't do pornography," Akane replied with a vitriol as she pulled inside leaving the "damn pervert" to show off alone. She looked at the squinting Ranma cringing in apprehension and sighed.

"I have a video camera," said Ami as she in turn leaned out. "But are you sure? Such a tape getting into the wrong hands..."

"How could I not be!" Minako sounded offended. "How many times do you get a chance to break a real, wild crocodile in an unequal contest? Bring your camera on!"

"But be brief," Ami warned her as she ran for the camera into the corner where she had her appliances stashed. "We have to rescue four more people! All right, filming now!"

Akane leaned out from the other side, against her better judgement. It was as she feared: Minako flaunted herself shamelessly taking most unchaste poses, she urged the crocodile to turn to and from while shouting "Omnom, fetch!" At the close inspection the end of the muzzle turned out to be tied off with a haphazard rope of twisted clothing, the madwoman holding onto its other end. The most scandalous was the bra hanging from the jaws to the left.

In the end she attempted to caracole on the croc while standing on bent legs. She was partially successful. The desperate animal reared up tearing the leash from the blond's hand as she held it with a dramatic fleur instead of holding it firmly. Minako splash-landed in the dirty water upside down as the long suffering animal swiftly swam away, its path visible for a while by the stirring of the vegetable carpet.

"Omnom, how could you!" Minako shouted after it dramatically after she surfaced, all covered with algae and weeds. "I thought we were friends!" She dove back under to avoid tearing through the dense vegetation, resurfacing at the portal. "You know, it's seriously ecchi to leave a girl nude by purloining all her—" At this point her monologue towards the receding reptile was cut short by the irate Akane who plucked her out of the swamp almost tearing her arm out in the process. The algae-smeared blond landed on the mirror floor with a smack. The portal immediately closed and there was suddenly much less green in the kaleidoscope of mirrors. And more skin tones.

"I'll, um, go scout outside," Ranma proclaimed after some coughing. She was carefully looking straight forward. "To assess the situation and stuff." She hastily left the hall.

"This swamp stench is so disgusting," Akane stated tactlessly and unfriendly as she stepped away from Minako and the widening pool of muddy water around her.

"I know, I know," Minako replied airily. "And my hair!" she added in an almost crying voice. "It pains me to even think about it! I know I'm asking much," she turned her gaze from Akane to Ami. "But isn't there a pool of clean water? And a comb?"

"There's unfortunately no comb," replied Akane, still unfriendly. "But the pools are aplenty," She pointed with her eyes towards the exit, there was a clear gloating in her voice. "Choose any pool of melt-water you like. It's icy! Maybe you'll chill down a little."

"Thanks," said Minako, completely unaffected by the barb. Then she went towards the exit, walking straight and completely unashamed. This caused Akane to feel an unhealthy mix of indignation and envy. At the exit the blond stopped turning around: "Akane.. I'm sorry if I was kind of a jerk. I think the testosterone got in my head." She disappeared outside, followed by Ranma's startled exclamation.

"She probably meant adrenaline," noted Ami as she handed Akane the medallion. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, just... Rrrrranma!"

"I'm here!" The completely flustered redhead returned into the hall, but not before peeking cautiously from beyond the corner. "I wasn't looking, honest!" she blurted when she walked up to her wife.

"Let's go!" Akane fiercely depressed the button.

The portal opened into a green twilight of a dense forest. They were greeted by the sweltering heat of jungles saturated with calls and warbles of invisible animals... In the thorny bushes ahead there, it seems, were more thorns than leaves. But this wasn't what attracted their attention. A naked, badly scratched Makoto was tearing through these bushes swearing like a dock worker. She was diving and twisting to dodge the thorny branches reaching at her from everywhere, trying to sink their thorns into her nude body like some ravenous claws ready to ravage her full breasts, her...

"Gack!" Ranma hastily closed her eyes shut hiding her head between her arms. Akane's eye twitched.

"Mako-chan!" she shouted. "What happened? Where's your clothing?"

"Guys!" Makoto exclaimed in joy. "Oh, what a relief!" A smile of sincere joy bloomed on her face. Akane winced in sympathy as she saw that the tall brunette was literally head to toe covered with deep scratches many of which were bleeding. "All my clothing is there!" Makoto pointed somewhere to the left. "But more importantly, my henshin pen! These red buggers won't let me get close or I'd have transformed already."

"I'm afraid magic doesn't work here." Ami was quick to disappoint her. "Minako had to defeat that crocodile as is, in civilian."

"A crocodile?" Makoto boggled. Then she started struggling through the brambles towards the portal twisting between the thorny branches that were inflicting new scratches as she went. Her unbound hair hanging below her shoulders kept catching. "How did she do that? I mean Ranma-kun or Akane-chan could easily beat a croc. But one of us?"

"Well, I suppose you could manage such or even grater feat when you want to live," grudgingly admitted Akane as she started to tear through to meet her. To think of it, the beast was around five meters weighing probably half a ton. Defeating such a thing with Minako's training is really a heroic deed.

The harsh reality was quick to remind her that she was still undressed, walking around in only her bra and mini-skirt. The thorns here were dire. Akane eeped, then concentrated directing her ki to reinforce her body like she did performing the Blasting Weak Point technique.(note 1) While it helped so-so against rocky blast fragments, it proved amazingly effective now. The thorns were just sliding off her body. Akane hurried towards Makoto intent of breaking the branches in the other girl's way... And almost lost her bra as it was jerked aside caught on the claw-like thorns. Akane twirled freeing her article of underwear but immediately heard a sound of ripping fabric from below. Her miniskirt became micro.

"Why, you!" Akane went breaking the branches left and right making a wide corridor in the boughy bushes. The long, curved thorns prickled her palms like needles overcoming even the ki reinforcement. It just made her work harder growling unflattering things in the address of the obnoxious plants.

"Thank you, Akane-chan," said Makoto making the last meters with some dignity through the breach made by her friend. "But we still have to get my henshin pen somehow. And my clothing, if possible. It's too awkward. And the poor Ranma-kun..."

Akane cast a sidelong glance at Ranma who still stood there cringing, her eyes shut tightly, her face red. Akane sighed. What a rotten luck. And it wasn't even his fault.

"Rei-chan!" Makoto noticed the girl lying unconscious in a corner. "What happened to her?"

"Don't worry," Ami hastily reassured her. "Just a heat stroke, she should wake up soon."

A shrill, almost ultrasonic shriek sounded from the outside.

"What? Who?" Makoto tensed.

"Don't worry," Akane told her. "It's Minako, washing up in a pool of melt-water."

"Indeed?" Makoto cast a side glance at the exit. "I think I'll go keep her company. These scratches are burning. Well, I'm also excited to know about the crocodile." She went towards the exit.

"You can unsquint now," Akane told her husband with a sigh. "There are no naked girls here."

The redhead cautiously opened one eye. Then she boggled staring at Akane.

"There's, ah, a hole in your bra," she noted with embarrassment as she reddened more. "And your skirt..." She caught herself staring and diverted her eyes: it was wrong place and time. The spouse's reaction could be explosive and unpredictable.

Akane hastily grabbed her blouse and pulled it on lightning-fast. So it was this she felt all this time as something being wrong! "Pervert," she said softly with a grumpy fondness.

"Akane-chan," Ami reminded her. "Stand in the aperture, the portal is going to close!"

"Right, we still have to return Makoto's things!" exclaimed Akane as she stood with her one foot here and her other foot there. "But there are some unknown 'red buggers'..."

"I'll go get it!" injected Ranma as she hastily pulled warm pants on over her black ones: she herself wasn't afraid of the thorns but she didn't want to rip her silk clothes. "Just point a direction and I'll deal with any buggers, red or purple!" She finished donning the parka.

"It's somewhere that way." Akane pointed.

"Yeah, just a moment!" The redhead bounded away over the brambles. She didn't go far, though. Her swearing could be heard from some forty meters away, along with the sound of bushes rustling. A dozen seconds later she returned rebounding from a tree, the bundle of Makoto's clothing tucked under her arm. She didn't walk in, though. She dropped the bundle and started throwing the articles of clothing to Akane one by one shaking them off vigorously.

"What are you doing?" asked Akane as she kept catching the things and throwing them further in to avoid them contacting the pool of muddy water in front of the portal.

"Ants!" explained Ranma. "Red, big like cockro... ouch!" She hit her leg with her other foot. "Buggers!" After she threw all things in, the redhead patted herself over and ducked through the portal. Akane removed her foot and it closed immediately, the thorny bushes replaced with her reflection. Ranma shed her parka and pulled the warm pants off. "The little bastards got some bite. How does it come that they haven't devoured Makoto while she was unconscious? The rock she arrived on fell right into their hill. Imagine them going apeshit at that! You had to see it, the bump is some three meters high! And wide as our doujo. Oh, here is the Jupiter pen." She held out for Akane a green pen with a large golden five-pointed star at its top, a circle with symbol reminiscent of number 4 adorning its center.

"Let's get the next one," said Akane as she handed the medallion to Ami. "It goes so well so far I'm afraid to jinx it."

"Then why are you mentioning it?" Ranma asked with sarcastically with a half-lidded stare.

"It's ready." Ami handed the medallion back. "Be aware that she's on the night side of the planet. It's dark there. On the positive side, this one haven't moved since I located her, the coordinates are static."

"You tell me like I never teleported from day into night," grumbled Ranma. Then added, even quieter: "I hope at least this one isn't naked."

Akane pressed the button. The portal turned from a mirror into an arched square of darkness, the hall dimming considerably.

"It's a forest again. Such huge roots..." commented Ranma as she moved outside gradually disappearing as she receded from the portal. "I don't see her, where should she be?"

"In theory, straight ahead," replied Ami. "Must be at thirty plus-minus three meters from the portal."

"Got it!" Ranma disappeared behind a massive dark shadow. The darkness was eerily silent, broken only by chirping of some insects. Akane stood watching warily, her eyes gradually getting used to the darkness. But there was nothing to look at. The light falling out of the portal made visible a tangle of some gnarly roots and a couple nearby trees of immense girth, with far outstanding buttresses. Ranma had disappeared beyond one of these. The light barely reached to the back side of the portal, it was a realm of primeval darkness pierced only by chains of wan lights. Akane strained her poorly trained ki senses as one couldn't rely on their sight here. She didn't get anything distinct, only a vague sense of danger, not too close but deadly for the one who let their guard down. The hairs on her neck stood on ends making her listen so strenuously that she started hearing Rei's breathing and Ami's clothes rustling. There was not a sound from Ranma, as one should expect.

"Gack!" suddenly Ranma's voice sounded from the darkness. "Hotaru-chan, why are you naked?"

Her danger sense was jolted, the "hidden menace" turning into "rapidly and inexorably approaching one". Ranma surely felt that, thought Akane. Then, right away, she realized he didn't. Getting into awkward situation always throws him off the track.

"Get back, now!" she yelled. "Both of you! Something is coming!"

"Hotaru-chan, run towards the light!" shouted the invisible Ranma. "I'll grab your things!"

Akane bit her lip. The danger was closing in too fast. Now she could tell many separate sources of ki emitting that utilitarian killing intent devoid of anger, which is characteristic of hunting predators.

A thin form of the young girl dashed from behind the tree, a vague light shadow against the black. Hotaru tried to run but kept stumbling on the uneven roots, her eyes blinded by the light from the portal, not used to walk barefooted. A bear-sized lump of darkness shot after her. Time slowed for Akane. In the light from the portal she could see the glint of hotaru's eyes wide from horror and of the fangs that would make a sabertooth proud. The girl stumbled and started falling, slowly in comparison to the predator flying at her with a swift grace.

Akane dashed forward, slower than she wanted: her left foot slid across the mirror floor as the alien entity ignored her instinctive effort to increase the friction using ki. She lost a lot of time but at last her right foot pushed properly propelling Akane forward. The falling Hotaru floated by, the dark beast coming closer. It was already correcting its lunge, already reacting to parry the sudden menace with its furry claw. But it was hopelessly slow. Akane twisted to avoid the huge claws floating slowly on an intercept course, she ducked under the gaping maw. Then she put all her strength, all her inertia into a simple straight punch. The recoil, both physical and ki, shook her body throwing her back with a cry of pain. Her muscles weren't fully recovered and she felt it. But the predator fared much worse. With a crack of broken breastbone the bulk was thrown back like a ragdoll. Hitting a tree with a dull sound the black beast ricocheted to the side landing somewhere in the darkness with a meaty thud.

"Come on, Hotaru-chan," Akane helped the girl to stand up and dragged her in. She was surprised to find Ami standing with one foot outside. "What—"

"It was going to close! You'd be cut off!"

Akane felt a chill along her spine.

"Ranma! What are you doing there!" She took the place of a plug, sharply aware how much being tied to a narrow line limited her freedom of movement. What if another one lunges at her? What if a pack? The unknown predator was amazingly swift for its size. While she alone covered an opening five meters wide and more than that in height! They could just leap over her!

Ami and Hotaru pulled further away behind her. A silence fell. Suddenly it was pierced by Ranma's swearing and a sound of a powerful blow. An invisible beast roared in pain and anger and was responded by its brethren. The return roar rolled through the darkness like a roll-call. There should be dozens of them, thought Akane, even if two thirds were echoes!

"Rrrrrrranmaaa!"

A resounding hit, an enraged roar, two more hits, a dull sound of a fallen body, a chorus of menacing roars.

"I just can't find it!" the invisible Ranma shouted, her voice full of frustration. "It's dark here like in a demon's asshole! And these buggers keep getting in my way!"

"What it?" shouted Akane. "Come on while I still got quota left!"

"Her henshin pen! Why you!" A few more resounding hits sounded followed by such a many-voiced roar like there was a huge pack of these things out there. Which was probably true.

"But I don't have a henshin pen," quietly corrected Hotaru. "I transform on my own. Well, by imagining and wishing it.

"Really?" Akane said, surprised. Then she yelled into the darkness: "Did you hear that? She never had one! Stop searching for what's not there and run back!"

"Aw, shucks!" replied Ranma with relief. A second later she rebounded from a nearby tree zipping past Akane with a bundle of clothing under one arm. The short-haired girl stepped back and the pack of charging sabertooths was replaced with her reflection.

"So, we have two to go," said Akane as she handed the medallion to Ami. "Let's hurry and finish this." She took the bundle from the hands of Ranma who stood with her eyes shut tightly. "Why were you sitting there in the nude?" she asked Hotaru as she helped the young girl to dress.

"It's because of _those_," said Hotaru shivering slightly. "I laid there quietly like a mouse, on top of the rock where I woke up. They were walking below, sniffing, tearing something." Akane noticed that the warm pants were shredded. "A scary place," concluded Hotaru. "But so beautiful. All these lights in the darkness." She smiled at the sole pleasant memory. "It wouldn't be so bad if not for _those_·stalking in the dark. The rock was cold but I pulled the parka under myself. I mean, before I realized I must not make a sound. But the centipedes..." She shuddered.

"Centipedes?" asked Akane, already mentally recoiling at the imagined picture.

"Un." Hotaru nodded. "This long." She parted her hands half a meter wide. "They kept falling from somewhere up. Sometimes they crawled over me."

Akane turned green.

"No, no," the girl hastily reassured her. "They don't bite. And they are really beautiful. So stylish, flowing... It was just unexpected. One suddenly crawled up on my back, it was very hard not too scream. I think I bit through my lip." She demonstrated her lip, not bit through but a bit swollen, with clearly visible bruises from her teeth. "Then I saw what a critter it was. Turns out they tickle like crazy. That one crawled up my shoulder, hung its front third off and started sniffing around, it looked so funny." She smiled weakly.

"I'm glad you made friends," Akane said diplomatically with a strained smile. She wasn't sure she'd be able to refrain from screaming if some disgusting things started creeping over her bare skin. "Ranma, you can open your eyes. She is decent."

Ranma cautiously cracked one eye open, then another one.

"It's ready," Ami handed the medallion to Akane. "But you should know..." She hesitated. "We have to be prepared for the worst. Michiru may swim like a fish, but falling unconscious..."

Akane pressed the button.

"Attention, opening the portal in aperture five," proclaimed the mechanical voice. "Warning, the ground level is unstable. Activating the mechanism of dynamic correction of the vertical coordinate according the protocol thirty eight."

The portal opened into darkness, a resilient stream of warm sea air greeting them. The bright tropical stars were visible even to their eyes not fully accustomed to the dark. But suddenly these were obscured by a wall of darkness rising higher and higher. Akane shouted a warning, but the wave started inexplicably receding becoming lower and lower until it disappeared completely. Akane blinked in confusion: "What was that?"

"The portal had dynamically corrected its vertical coordinate," explained Ami. "Simply speaking, it rose to pass over the wave."

Akane and Ranma bent over to look outside. The dark water was several meters below them, the next wave was coming but its top wouldn't even reach the opening. The portal didn't dignify them with moving back down.

"He-e-ey, Is anyone alive out there!" shouted Ranma into the darkness.

"There is!" a overjoyed voice of Michiru reached them. "I'm here!"

"Michiru-mama!" happily exclaimed Hotaru as she ran up to the portal.

"Swim here, the portal is stationary!" Ami warned as she walked up to the edge. The four of them stood there in a row, the salty wind ruffling their hair and making them push against its resilient pressure.

Soon Michiru's head could be seen in the waves, surrounded by a pale blue glow. Accompanied by joyful shouts of the rescuers, she swam under the portal... Where she stopped, sometimes rising as close as a couple meters, sometimes sinking to a good half dozen below.

"We'll have to hang down," said Ranma as she turned to Akane. "Maybe even holding each other." She was starting to have some vague apprehension. It was hard to see in the darkness, but...

"Or to wait for the next big wave," said Michiru. "I can float here for hours, the water is warm."

"We can't keep the portal open for long," Akane rejected that idea in an apologizing voice.

"But we don't have a rope," added Ranma.

"Attention, a big wave is coming!" warned Ami. "Michiru-san, you can grab at the edge safely but it is relatively thin, try to make sure you are not pressed against it! And the portal will rise with the wave!

Michiru sized the wave glancing back, then she backed away slightly with a couple of powerful strokes. The rising wave lifted her higher even than the bottom of the opening carrying her onto the portal. She swam forward using the gained momentum to practically throw herself into the escaping portal as she pushed against the floor with her straightened arms, one of which was clutching her henshin pen, and pulling one leg up to the edge before the wave fell from under her. She didn't even have to grab at Akane's helpfully outstretched arm.

Ranma realized, at last, what the apprehension was. But it was too late! The emerald-haired nymph, who emerged so elegantly from the sea waves, straightened up flexibly as she pulled her other leg in, her waist swaying enticingly in the process. The salty moisture was falling in drops from the emerald tresses sticking to her shoulders, was rolling down her slender nude body streaming in tiny rivulets over her supple breasts... The untimely closing portal turned a mirror reflecting the spellbinding perfection of forms from a different perspective while the side wall of the arch, a mirror too, added one more angle. The redhead made a strangled noise turning around in panic as her wife's glare was burrowing into her.

Minako and Makoto entered the hall, so engrossed in discussion they completely forgot about their nudity. The tantalizing curves of the peppy blond contrasted against the softly swaying talents of the athletic brunette covered head to toe in scratches emphasizing...

"Gah!" Ranma twirled away. In vain as the kaleidoscope of mirrors was reflecting everything, _everything_, making the random glimpses even more titillating, attracting her eyes like a magnet... Damn it, they are friends! He shouldn't think about them _that_·way! But the treacherous eyes lived a life of their own like they were possessed catching more and more details he absolutely didn't want to know about these girls! Ranma shut her eyes tightly but it didn't help! The trained observancy rebelled turning against its master, the unwanted details kept popping up from the memory like gas bubbles from a soda, pushing, popping, being replaced by different ones.

Akane is looking, Ranma grabbed at the last argument. Stubbornly, persistently she kept displacing the flickering of unchaste pictures with a mental image of a mallet approaching inexorably. It was hard, but in the end she prevailed.

Ranma straightened up. Beet-red, breathing heavily, but finally in control. She wasn't planning to open her eyes for at least a hour, even if...

Alas, the infamous luck was still with her. Rei, who had been lying there like an article of furniture, suddenly jumped onto her feet with a yell. Ranma opened her eyes in surprise. The cloth slid off her and Ranma spent several seconds watching the erratical jiggling of the raven-haired miko's breasts as the girl was jumping around on one foot yelling and frantically pulling her panties down.

Ranma recoiled in desperation, turning away, _away!_, losing her balance. Tangled in her own legs she fell flat on the floor, face down. She started rising on her elbows but suddenly found Minako's and Makoto's legs right in front of her face! The redhead lowered her eyes in panic, looking straight into the floor... Her eyes widened, then rolled up and she went limp, falling back to the floor with a dull thud.

"Pervert," Akane said in a tired voice without any conviction.

"What's wrong with her?" asked Minako sounding surprised.

"With _him!_" Akane snapped at the blond. "Be so kind, make an effort to look where are you standing! And think of what did he see in the reflection!"

"Oh!" Minako realized with an uncalled for enthusiasm as she bent down to the unconscious redhead whose head rested almost between her feet. "Well, a mirror floor that reflects everything standing on it, upside down... It was an interesting turn of events." She pulled at Ranma's shoulder. The red-haired head rolled listlessly making visible a small stream of blood running down from her nose.

"Don't look at me like that!" said Rei. "I was suddenly bitten by something!" She shook her panties. A huge red ant fell out. "I'd like to look at you if you were bitten by a thing like that in your private parts!" She rubbed the inside of her thigh. "Ouch."

And only Makoto had the dignity to blush.

(シーンブレイク)

January 09, 2012. Translated April 14, 2012

- **Thanks for C&C to:**  
— J. St.C. Patrick  
— Orphus users (6 bugs so far)


	13. Stuck!

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 13  
Stuck!**

"..not that I thought.."

"..we all are guilty to some degree.."

"..somehow to forget that one of us isn't exactly a girl.."

Ranko was slowly floating up from the depths of a tacky, viscous nightmare. The voices reaching her were dull, vague, at times becoming close and distinct then receding again. She was tearing towards the light anxious to get out of this endless bewitchery, this phantasm of uncontrollable attraction towards her teammates that had suddenly consumed her — making her to cheat on Akane in her mind, to think such burning thoughts about other girls! That must have been a nightmare. Of course! She's a girl, one of them, what took her?

"..yet five bras for the eight of us. But to wear in parkas in this heat..."

"Four. Ranma is again without."

"Three. Who did count Hotaru, she's double A."

"All right, all right. We've covered almost everyone, now if Akane gives hers to Michiru—"

"It won't work! Mine has a hole in it!" That was the voice of Akane, her beloved wife.

Ranko's smoothly flowing thoughts ground to a halt. How could a girl be a wife of an another girl? They are both girls, right?

It turns out it wasn't. It turns out that that nightmare was true! So who is she, then? The girl felt suddenly ill. She remembered she is really a guy, Saotome Ranma. This made her... him... nauseated. Fighting the dizziness she moaned shaking her head.

"Look! She woke up!"

"It seems I'll have to dress warmly." Michiru's voice was somehow detached like she wasn't completely there.

"Wait." That was Makoto's voice. "Let me make you a bikini from that lab coat. We don't need compresses anymore, we could use the sleeves."

Ranma carefully opened her eyes still hoping it was just a nightmare.

She was greeted by a sight of undressed girls standing around and looking at her from above. They somehow managed to stretch a half of clothing necessary for seven people. Only Hotaru stayed dressed: small even for her twelve years, she couldn't share with anyone. Well, Akane was fully dressed too, if one ignored her ripped mini-skirt making her panties clearly visible. The others looked like an amateurish harem on a promenade. Ami sat at the wall doing something with the medallion, clad in shoes, her traditional mini wrap skirt and a bra. Rei sported her blouse, too short to cover the panties. A scraggly-haired, disheveled Minako, bare-footed like Rei, was swimming in Makoto's jeans and blouse. The brunette, clad in only her underwear and warm boots, was working on Michiru while covering the emerald-haired woman with her body. Ineffectively. Ranma hastily shifted her gaze away from Makoto's scratch-covered back. Right, that was what she shifted her gaze away from.

The redhead shook the cobwebs off her mind. She stood up making a point of looking in other direction and casting wary glances at Akane. But the shor-haired girl, it seems, wasn't angry at all.

"What did I miss?"

"Nothing important," Akane said flatly, with a hidden subtext that elaborating upon this topic further was undesirable. "We've been discussing what do we do next."

"This place is like a mouse-trap," Rei voiced their mutual concern. "If that knight returns or some other things creep in on us, we're done for!"

"So we have to move somewhere we wouldn't be defenseless!" Makoto said, in such tired voice it was clear they had been going over this topic many times. "Which means to move home where we'd be able to transform. Not to mention the bad feeling I have about all these scratches itching too much. They may inflame."

"Itching?" Rei responded snarkily. "At least your whole body doesn't burn like scalded." She winced in pain. "And I feel some nasty chills..."

"A thermal burn in the front, a sunburn in the back," affirmed Ami. "This is far from harmless, you're at risk of developing a fever, severe enough to lose your consciousness. You all need to transform soon." She shifted her gaze to Minako. "Especially you. There are abrasions all over the inner side of your thighs, you spent around two hours with these submerged in a literal soup of pathogenic bacteria. Not to mention it getting in your eyes and everywhere on your mucosae."

"It's probably when I slipped off that tree," admitted Minako. "Well, Omnom-kun didn't have gentlest skin either. But why you say it like I've caught some leprosy!"

"You very well could have!" Ami shouted, outraged at such thoughtlessness. "Do you have you any idea what a dangerous place tropical swamp is ?"

"Of course I do!" Minako was surprised. "There are crocodiles there!" She stared in confusion at Ami who looked even more outraged, then added with less confidence: "Umm, and snakes?"

"Bacteria!" Ami shouted advancing on the blonde who started backing away. "Incurable diseases that eat away at your brain making you a slobbering idiot! Parasites! Microscopic worms that make home in your eyes and devour them from inside until you turn blind!" She let out a noisy breath making an effort to calm down. "That's not counting a simple vaginal infection with probability close to one."

Minako turned green.

"We... When could we get where we can transform?" she squeezed out.

"I have found a way to open portal to Earth... To _our_·Earth," Ami said in a distracted tone as she looked over the medallion screen. "But there's a catch. Or, more precisely, two. First, we could return only to the place where we fought that unknown enemy—"

"By the way, who is he?" Ranma interrupted her. "Could you find it using this thing?"

"He is an Ahs user level six or higher." Ami sighed. "There is no way to get more information. We have little access, with our level seven. Everything concerning more privileged users is classified for us. We couldn't even find his name.

"I see," Ranma replied grimly. "More privileged means smaller number, as I understand."

"Exactly. Now for us returning home. It would be one-sided way as there is no transport node in our world anymore. While opening the portal from an arbitrary point is theoretically possible, it requires access level four. Which means, one of us the infected must stay here until the rescue operation is over.

"Me 'n Akane will stay, no question here," Ranma agreed hastily while the others were still absorbing the news. "You'll probably have to stay too, to find us a way and stuff."

"Are you nuts?" Akane exploded. "She's defenseless! Both you and me could survive without the Senshi magic, but what would _she_·do if she is attacked? Or if she has to dodge something? Or, say, jump down into the forest from that cliff to evade an enemy?"

This made Ranma stop and think.

"That's not what we should think about," objected Ami. "We should think how to get Usagi back! I'll survive somehow." She tried to put up a brave front but it was obvious the perspective depicted by Akane scares her. What if animals really come out of the forest at night? The cliff wouldn't stop a hungry and determined predator.

"Wait," said Ranma. "We'd need the medallion on our way, right? So we'll be taking it with us." She started straightening her curled fingers one by one. "Second, you wouldn't be able to keep up with us, right?" Ami nodded. "Third, without the medallion you couldn't do squat anyway, right?"

"Right," agreed Ami. "So you propose that I return to Earth?"

"And sit there, as Mercury, at a safe distance," confirmed Ranma. "If we fail to make tails and ends of some mind-bending mumbo-jumbo we'll open the portal — you'll teach Akane how to do it — and you'll come here and help while I give you cover."

"An excellent plan," agreed Ami. "However... That's it! No, I'm afraid it's not that easy."

"What do you mean?" Minako grew wary. "You go with us to Earth to wait there while they are rescuing. What's more to this? Let's go already!"

"I think I know," Rei said, wincing as she made an awkward movement. "A totally demolished mountain range, a chunk of tropical forest of unknown origin... And then we suddenly emerge amidst it, pretty and not a bit suspicious."

"Aw, bugger!" Ranma swore. "Well, maybe they didn't notice? It's a middle of nowhere after all, not a soul for hundreds of kilometers around. It'll take them some time to figure it wasn't an earthquake, then more time for someone to come check it. We'll be long finished and gone when they do."

"Where exactly is that place?" asked Hotaru. "Is it In China? I'm a bit lost here."

"Alas, it isn't in China," replied Ami. "It is in Russia, unfortunately."

"Why unfortunately?" Akane asked, still unaware of the implications.

"It's a nuclear power," explained Ami. "Dozens of satellites, complex sensor networks ever on watch for a sudden attack."

"I heard it all got rusted to the ground?" Makoto asked with uncertainty in her voice.

"Far from every thing," replied Ami. "Which only makes it worse. There are undoubtedly gaps in the touch area of the tracking systems. This would make the people manning them jumpy and suspicious."

"And then something goes kaaaa-boom," Minako finished for her grimly. "Right in the middle of their territory." She plopped down to the floor wrapping her arms around her knees and proceeded to sit there — clearly imagining in graphic detail as various bacilli and worms gnaw at her from inside.

"Exactly." There was a tired hopelessness in Ami's voice. "So we'd step out of the portal to meet face to face with army reconnaisance. Supported by special forces and possibly bomber planes."

"And someone's twitcy finger on the button that launches rockets aimed at the alien anomaly," Minako poured more black paint as she lowered her head in total defeat hiding her face in her knees.

"So then, we better stay here?" suggested Makoto.

"And how do you think we protect ourselves against any serious threat?" Rei inquired angrily. "Ranko and Akane will be gone, we will stay here to fend for ourselves, then comes some dinosaur..."

"We could make a fire in the opening?" Makoto wasn't giving up, disliking to feel like a helpless burden.

"And who would be climbing down the cliff to get logs? Into the forest probably swarming with dinosaurs?"

"You don't think we can hurl some dinosaur back?" grumbled Minako.

"Your victory over that crocodile got in your head!" Rei's temper flared. "Dinosaurs could be ten times bigger! And they can run!" Her voice was gradually losing confidence. "Very fast... Right, Ami?"

"We don't have any means of first aid," Ami reminded them. "We were incredibly lucky that nobody have been wounded. We cannot afford any risk, even a slightest one."

"So what do we do?" asked Makoto crossing her arms.

"Is the portal tied to one fixed spot?" asked Ranma. "Or could it be shifted around some?"

"There's tolerance of several hundred meters," replied Ami. She tapped something in quickly. "In fact it could be opened in any point of an area corresponding to our island of terrestial landscape."

"Excellent!" Ranma exclaimed, clearly glad to hear this. "It means they cannot block us exit and ambush us until they gather a whole army of men! If we jump out and immediately close the portal—"

"What are you planning?" Akane asked with suspicion and worry.

"Well, there'd be the forest that disappeared from here?"

"In theory, yes," agreed Ami. "So far everything points at an equal exchange of spacetime fragments."

"So we can disembark unnoticed!" Ranma elaborated with enthusiasm. "We open it, I jump out, make sure than there's no one—"

"Let's first find what do we need to rescue Usagi," Akane interrupted her. "And how long would it take. And only then start making plans."

"I'm afraid it would take many days," Ami said blindsiding everyone. "The laws of interrelation between the worlds... Well, simply saying, the worlds of Ahs are separated by some... distance. The power consumption of the portal is proportional to this distance times four."

"Times four meaning?" asked Ranma.

"Shame on you!" hissed Akane. "Like you haven't been learning math at all!" She continued in a normal voice: "Square a square!"

"Yeah, that's one steep curve," agreed Ranma. "Then... You mean we'd have to move in short hops, like crossing a river jumping from stone to stone? Well, what's the problem then? From pyramid to pyramid, then the last leg to Usagi and quickly back!"

"Portal energy consumption also depends on distance between the exit point and the nearest transport node," Ami said cooling her enthusiasm down. "Reversely proportional to it times e. You can't hop from node to node, you have to disembark several tens of kilometers away and walk the rest of the way to the pyramid."

"Tens of kilometers?" Akane cried out.

"I know, I know," Ranma injected hurriedly as she cast a wary side glance at her. "E is... in short, they make olgharithms from this thing."

"I'm afraid, so," confirmed Ami. "There's a vague report about some recent catastrophe that disrupted the entire network of inter-world connections. The transport nodes cannot connect directly anymore due to some 'relativistic temporal vacillation'. As I understand it, the flow of time got slightly desynchronized—"

"And how many such little runs of 'several tens of kilometers' we have to make?" Ranma interrupted her remembering their recent race through desert.

"I suppose, from six to twelve," Ami again blindsided them. "Although if... No, that is too dangerous." She immediately regretted letting that out, but it was too late.

"What's too dangerous?" Ranma grabbed onto her slip like a thick. "So there's some shortcut, isn't it?"

"I don't think..." Ami sighed giving up. "You can reach your destination in two jumps, but you'd have to pass through a very dangerous world..."

"What kind of dangerous?" Ranma kept pressing.

"This world has a zero ki factor," Ami lifted her eyes from the tiny screen and looked right in the redhead's eyes. "All your abilities would be annulled there. Not just weakened like they were in that world where you saved Rei from, but totally blocked."

"But life is impossible without ki," Akane noted in a surprised voice. "Every living thing does have ki, however weak—"

"That's why every living thing there died long ago," Ami interrupted her, clutching the medallion. "And a healthy human dies in twenty to forty hours. It's a world of death, in the literal sense. If you are detained by something—"

"We understand," Ranma cut in flatly. "Right, Akane?"

The dark-haired girl just nodded with a look of grim determination.

"There are many other dangers." Ami tried make her listen to reason, not particularly hoping to. "High levels of radioactivity, for starters."

"So you will tell us all about these dangers..." Ranma frowned. "But we've already wasted too much time. Explain it all to Akane, I'll be running for supplies."

"What do you mean, supplies?" Minako was horrified. "Alone? But what about the Russian special squads?"

"Well, I _do_·have a couple tricks up my sleeve," Ranma replied smugly. "And besides, can anyone here teleport by themselves...? Yeah, thought so."

"Could we just talk to them nicely?" asked Hotaru.

The girls exchanged glances.

"Does anyone know Russian?" Makoto voiced the rhetorical question.

Everyone looked at Ami.

"No, no, of course I don't," she replied hastily, suddenly feeling very awkward.

"So we follow my plan," Ranma summed up. "I jump out cloaked with invisibility technique. If everything is quiet I sneak by at a safe distance from them, then I transform—"

"How do you get back?" Akane asked the pressing question.

"Well, we appoint a time, half an hour should be enough, after which you open the portal. I return to the same spot and wait there, invisible—"

"There's no need," Ami interrupted her. "Anyone of the three of us — or, to be exact, you two until my quota replenishes — can open the portal connecting transport node with the last used point. You just have to recite a voice command. It doesn't even matter in which of the Ahs worlds you are when you issue that command... Although for our Earth this is true only in the confines of the anomalous zone... I think."

"So I can open it even without this interactor thingie?" Ranma was delighted. "This changes everything!" She frowned. "But then you can get here from Earth by yourself."

"No, I can't. Think: you and Akane open the portal from the next transport node into yet another world, then again... What would happen after my command?"

"Oh, right!" Ranma slapped her forehead. "Sorry."

"And she is out of her quota!" Akane reminded as she lightly smacked her upside her head. "Did you forget already?"

"Err, then, like," Ranma rubbed her head. Her spouse had a heavy hand. "Let's begin?"

Ami opened the medallion and started tapping the keys.

"If you get an opportunity," Akane was listing for Ranma instructively, "grab us some simple kimono(note 1) so we don't have to look like either vagabonds or a branch of thousands and one nights."

"To save your time," suggested Rei, "you could borrow some ritual garb in the shrine. Especially as most of these are returned by now. Ask grandpa for directions to the storage closet."

"Oh, by the way, bullets could ricochet from walls," Minako injected suddenly. This made the others look at her like she grew a second head. "Why are you looking? What I said is true. Or did you think I'm a complete, hopeless blond?"

"Well, Mina-chan, you are usually so... so..." Makoto fumbled for words.

"So, are the walls here hard?" elaborated the blond who wasn't a hopeless blond as they found.

"Impregnable," said Akane.

"Then there would be definitely ricocheting if shooting starts," Minako said in an expert's voice. "Just imagine these soldiers riding their bears through a strange and mysterious forest. And suddenly before them there emerges a mystical gate into some astral unknown! Of course they could snap."

"Thank you, this reassures us so much," Rei responded sarcastically.

"Akane cast a worried glance at Ranma.

"I mean," Minako continued meanwhile, "we have to walk out before Ranko-chan opens the portal. And hide behind the corners."

"A good idea," agreed Ranma. "Ami, are you finished?"

Ami kept looking tensely at the small screen as she checked and double-checked the formula. Finally she closed the medallion: "Done. You can open it by voice. Your code phrase, then 'open the portal to specified coordinates'. To close it, just say 'close the portal', you could do this from the other side, you could even whisper. If it doesn't work, repeat your code phrase." She hastily retreated towards the exit.

"Here we go..." Ranma flattened herself against the wall beside the arch. "Ahs-seven Tkhachshchas Eet Suht, open the portal to specified coordinates!"

The girls stood listening outside the pyramid. The apprehension was so tense that when instead of expected gunshots, or a quiet pop of a closing portal, they heard Ranma's shocked outcry of "What the hell?" they grew worried and started peeking into the pyramid against the plan.

The portal was open, Ranma stood there sticking her head out, not hiding at all.

"What the heck is this?！ Ami! Hey, Ami, come here, look! What is going on out there?"

Ami rushed towards the portal, the others followed her in an uneven crowd. Akane outran them pushing the other girls aside and stood beside Ranma on a rocky slope.

On a rocky slope.

There was no forest. There was a lifeless mountainside. Completely intact, without a slightest chip where a deep ravine made by Saturn should have been. Snow lied untouched where Sol's flame should have vaporized it.

"Look!" Minako cried out, her voice catching.

Everyone turned around. They stared in silence. The mountain ridge across the valley, that should have been leveled by the knight, stood intact.

"Why did we return into the past?" asked Rei.

Ranma squinted looking at the sky. "Doesn't look like past. Sun has moved. We spent more than a a couple hours there," She pointed at the subpolar sun hanging low over the horizon. "It moved for that much."

"So it's yesterday, then?" asked Minako. "Or a year ago?" She suddenly grew horrified. "Don't tell me we fell a hundred years back! You can't tell in these mountains!"

Ami frowned fiddling with one of her appliances she carried around wrapped in a piece of lab coat. "No, it's definitely today. The navigator signals confirm the date."

"So this is, whatchamacallit, parallepipedal world?" Minako asked in confusion.

"No, I'm getting signals from a server I set up myself just this morning."

"Look!" Ranma exclaimed in alarm as she looked behind the portal.

They ran around the arch, all at once, to look where she was pointing. Amidst the slope there was an alien intrusion: a huge circle of high grass — a time and a half as high as the girls were — with some baobab towering over it. One half of that baobab looked suspiciously familiar...

Ami gasped dropping her current high-tech thingamabob. The fragile appliance landed with a sharp crack but the girl genius didn't even notice that, her eyes opening wider and wider in horror.

"Isn't it the same baobab half of which sticks up on the other side?" Ranma asked in confusion.

"What?" Rei asked in alarm, addressing Michiru. Everyone turned to look at the emerald-haired woman who was limply sinking down to her knees. "What's wrong? Are you feeling ill?"

"The exchange wasn't equal," Ami whispered in a dead voice. "The reality... I don't even know how to call this. The causality itself became fragmented."

"What does it mean?" asked Minako with trepidation. She didn't like the tone of these words.

"She's gone," Michiru breathed out through tears.

Hotaru was silent but her eyes were so sorrowful, so full of understanding, telling so openly "every living thing is destined to fade away" that everyone who met her eyes felt a chill along their spine. It felt like Death walking by on his business made a friendly pat on their shoulder.

"The fragment where Haruka-san has been," Ami swallowed. "It ceased to be."

"What do you mean?" Akane asked, still refusing to believe.

"The fragments of reality weren't swapped as I thought," explained Ami. "They were copied or replaced. The fragment where she happened to be has been replaced with one where she wasn't present."

"Or copied elsewhere," injected Ranma who took a great dislike towards this extra-mural mourning.

"I doubt it." Ami quenched their hope. "The method I used to detect all who were scattered is... It's very reliable and definite. But it did show exactly six."

"Well maybe she's still _somewhere_?" Ranma was persistent.

"I'm afraid, no," Ami replied absent-mindedly as she was clearly weighing some idea in her mind. "The very fact of cloning points at a high probability of the spacetime fragment having been completely replaced. Although if—"

"So let's consider her missing in action," Ranma interrupted her forcefully. "Like Setsuna. We'll be searching for her. You did have only a hour to study this stuff, didn't you?"

"I, that's right," Ami agreed, somehow confused.

"So after we save Usagi you can take your time with it!" Ranma proclaimed in an optimistic vein. "And figure out how this stuff works, where they disappeared to and who was that invincible lubber! Right?"

"Well, possibly." Ami didn't want to give her comrades false hope. "It's impossible to tell beforehand."

"Good enough." Ranma quickly finished her attempts seeing that she got a stubborn client and her plan to pull everyone out of depression begins to spin wheels. "All right, I'm going. Akane, watch your quota. Don't blow it." She turned around and disappeared moving in huge leaps down the valley.

"Oh! Right!" Akane cried out, startled. "So, contact every half an hour," she spoke rapidly. "Ahs-seven shahs khe eet, close the portal!" With that she disappeared leaving the six undressed girls alone amidst the frosty middle of nowhere.

"Hey!" Rei shouted towards the empty space. "What if magic doesn't work everywhere? What would we do, croak here from the cold?"

"I think," Makoto noted as she shivered in only her underwear and boots, "she thought of half an hour naked in the frost as a mild endurance test."

"Or she didn't think at all!" Minako exploded hopping on one foot then on another one. "A-choo! We aren't her, we didn't ask for swimming in an ice-hole or sleeping on nails!"

"The available quota is limited," Ami reminded them quietly. "The open portal consumes power."

"Right..." Minako grumbled losing her momentum. "Everything for saving our Princess and no complaining... All right, I don't know about you guys but I'm going to Venus Star Power, Make-Up!"

The transformation phrase rang long ago, even the echo of it died out. Minako continued to stay with her henshin pen held high. Finally she uttered a very colorful expression and started hopping from foot to foot with renewed intensity curling her toes.

"A test, you say," Rei said with venom. "A mild one." Bare-footed as well, she wasn't hopping but kept shifting from foot to foot curling her toes. "And of course it was too hard to throw my parka out first!"

"Mine too, by the way," added Minako.

Everyone stared at the spot where the portal had been, expecting Akane to come to her senses and open it for a second to return their sparse collection of winter clothing.

A minute passed. Then another one. It started to snow a little.

"That's one hardheaded girl," grumbled Rei.

"Let me give you my boots," Makoto suggested with true sincerity. "After all, I've trained under a waterfall and—"

"And got an impressive cold that time!" Rei interrupted her. "Let's move, quickly. Find where this null-zone ends and transform at last!

"Because Michiru-mama is freezing!" Hotaru agreed as she pulled the emerald-haired woman by her arm.

"I'm sorry Hotaru-chan!" Michiru said, throwing off her stupor "You are chilled!" This sounded ironic coming from the woman clad in a makeshift bikini made from strips of cloth roughly tied together.

"It's nothing!" the little girl tried to refuse. "I'm not cold at all!" she said with open sincerity despite the fact her ears were becoming red: her hat got lost in the turmoil. "Take my parka, you'll freeze!" The legs visible under the said parka were covered with only thin pantyleg stockings and one boot.

"Let's do it like this: I'll carry you and you'll be warming my back," Michiru suggested as she kneelt before her sticking her elbows out.

"All right," agreed Hotaru. "Only..." She hastily unzipped her parka and only then climbed onto her mom's back. "Oh, you are so cold! Let's go, hurry!"

"Long overdue," Minako echoed as she smoothly turned from hopping in place to an awkward run bare-footed across rocks. "Now— Hey! What are you doing!" she yelled indignantly when Makoto scooped her up.

"I'm wearing boots so I run faster!" the tall brunette retorted as she threw the other girl over her shoulder and pushed faster. Besides, you're warm! Stop wriggling and hold on properly!"

Rei lagged behind walking awkwardly bare-footed beside Ami who kept even with her. "Aren't you freezing at all?" she asked, her teeth clattering. The blue-haired girl walked calmly not even shivering in her bra and mini-skirt.

"It's a bit colder here than I like," Ami admitted sheepishly. "Would you mind if I follow their example by carrying you?"

"Wouldn't it be too much for you?" Rei asked her smaller friend doubtfully.

"I'll manage," Ami reassured her. "Besides, I'm wearing shoes, we don't have to go far by my estimates, and..." She finally shivered adding awkwardly: "And it's warmer together."

(シーンブレイク)

After she scoured shops in search of the more exotic gear like an inflatable boat or arctic gear Sailor Sol had only scrapes of their family budget left despite choosing second-hand shops on the otskirts, pressing without any conscience on shoopkeepers' conscience and using her girly charms with all the delicacy of a sledgehammer.

It was time to visit one more place, to get more mundane traveling supplies.

The pigtailed girl disappeared in a flash leaving behind a crowd of confused onlookers and slightly impoverished shoopkepers.

(シーンブレイク)

The dead zone turned out to be quite small, barely a couple hundred meters across. They combed it thoroughly, transforming and detransforming in shifts but getting chilled despite that. They overturned every rock. But there weren't many rocks on this monolitic, wind-swept slope. There was no sign of Uranus.

Neptune went numb inside. There was really no hope left: Mercury computer started working again, showing no life signs for several kilometers around. But they didn't even need it: their magical senses confirmed a complete lack of human presence.

Uranus has really been erased by the cataclysm. Scratched out of the reality so completely and irrevocably there was no trace left of her.

The six had to sit there waiting when Sol returns. Or when Akane opens the portal as the half an hour elapses.

Or the enemy returns to squash them like bugs.

(シーンブレイク)

There was a flash in a narrow space between fences, Sailor Sol materializing from the light. She glanced around, listening, and dropped her transformation, for a fleeting moment becoming nude Ranma. The red silk shirt and black pants quickly faded in around her. It seems there was again some ruckus in the Tendou house...? Ranma hopped up onto the fence, the onto the doujo roof. From this vantage point she could observe a curious scene: a panicking, slightly steaming panda was running in circles around the carp pond. He was chased by a teakettle-bearing Nodoka who minced after him with an almost unnatural speed in her impeccable kimono.

"Dear, stop running. Let us try one more time, I am sure the first time water was just not hot enough..."

"Borf!" The cursed martial artist raised a tablet as he kept nervously glancing back: "Don't scald the cute panda!" He flipped his tablet. "Pandas are a rare, endangered species!"

"Dear! Pleasae stop squirming! We _really_·need to talk!"

"PA-HOO‼" Another tablet flew up: "Somebody help‼" flip "She tries to boil me!"

"Dear‼！"

Despairing, the panda splash-landed in the pond raising an impressive wave.

"Ara..." Kasumi's voice reached from inside the house. "It's not nice to scare the poor carps like that."

"Dear, you are wearing my patience thin!"

"Blurbl." The panda dramatically crossed his eyes. "You have mistaken, woman!" flip "I'm just a capybara you aren't acquainted with!"

"Oh, that's rich, uncle Saotome!" an invisible Nabiki commented from the family room. "A true masterpiece!"

"Mom!" Ranma called as she jumped down from the roof. "What's going on?"

"Ranma!" the woman said in a slightly berating voice. "How should you greet your parents?"

"I'm home. Hello, mother. Are you well?" Ranma said in a too-sweet good girl's voice as she accepted the teakettle. "So what's the ruckus?" She cast a side glance at her father as she lifted the teakettle over her head, but immediately jerked it away. "Ouch! Why so hot?"

"Oh, we had have a little misunderstanding, that's all," Nodoka replied serenely as she managed at the same time to look lovingly at her child and disapprovingly at her husband who floated in the pond. "It seems I was too hasty and failed to heat the water properly the first time."

Ranma felt something fall inside. She started pouring the scalding-hot water over her head disregarding the pain. And the longer she poured the bigger the chunk of ice in her stomach grew. Tearing the lid off, the girl upended the tea-kettle over her head.

Nodoka looked at her with growing confusion that soon turned to worry.

"I'm afraid that isn't the case, mom," Ranma squeezed out wincing with one eye shut. "That isn't the case at all." She threw the tea-kettle down to the grass and raised her shaking hand to wipe excess water from her steaming red bangs. "Why does this shit keep happening to me?！" her outraged cry reached for the sky.

(シーンブレイク)

"Do you know what?" Venus said with a sigh casting a sidelong glance at Mercury who sat engrossed with her computer. "I wouldn't have thought, but I envy her." She ran her fingers through her hair looking like she couldn't get used to it being clean and smooth again.

Her only reply was silence reigning over this mountain land. Nobody felt inclined to talk.

There was a flash as Sol returned carrying a huge backpack bigger than herself, almost bursting at the seams. She held a smaller one in her hand.

"Ain't I late?" she asked huffing from exertion. Teleporting while carrying a load was five times harder. Exhausting even to someone as powerful as her.

A gate-sized kaleidoscopic arch appeared a hundred meters away from the Senshi.

"Everyone's all right?" Akane shouted peeking out. "Exactly half an hour as I promised! Oh, Ranma, you're already here! Come on, hurry! The sooner we go, the sooner we get there!" She then made an awkward pause as she bent down to grab something. "And here are, ahem, three sets of parkas..." She lifted the bundle of warm clothing in one hand, displaying it.

"Thank you very much," Mars shouted back with a great deal of venom. "This will help us greatly _now_!"

The redhead detransformed into Ranma and hurried towards the portal. Mercury also detransformed into Ami but paused turning back to the others: "As for you, leave! Return to Tokyo via Sailor Teleport!"

"Aren't you going with us?" Jupiter asked, surprised.

"No," Ami replied with conviction. "I'll return here to wait, according the plan."

"So you want us to abandon you?" Venus exclaimed with indignation.

"You could do nothing if he returns," reasoned Ami. "We'll just die all together in vain... Don't you worry, I'll be hiding! I'll run over that ridge—"

"Do you seriously think," Mars retorted sceptically, "That someone as powerful wouldn't be able to see you through a mountain?"

"Someone as powerful can barely fly," Saturn injected with a childish directness. "He also couldn't defend from common rocks for a while."

"So there's always hope," Ami finished on an optimistic note. "Besides... I have an idea, maybe I could open the portal to that zone in Tokyo. If that's the case, I'll return right there..." She looked at each of the the five girls in sailor suits. Rare snowflakes kept thawing on her bare shoulders making her scringe. "Come on. Some of us do have relatives there, they must be beside themselves from worry. Sol cannot waste her power ferrying you one by one. Go! There's exactly five of you remain." She turned around and ran towards the portal where Akane was waving impatiently.

"So we just withdraw?" asked Jupiter. She didn't like the idea.

"What else could we do?" Venus shrugged. "Without Sol and Moon it would be like going with a toothpick against a tank. Let's really get out of here. Maybe he won't linger here if he sees no one around."

"Yeah, he'll go straight for Tokyo and level it," Mars said cooling her enthusiasm. "But you are right about a toothpick. Let's make him at least make a chase if he tries to get us. We'd gain nothing by brooding here."

The girls formed a circle. The three Inners held hands with Neptune and the miniature Saturn who was also a part-time Judgment Day angel. No one felt confident. Granted, Inners did it many times before, but always together with Moon. Michiru was used to teleport together with Haruka while Hotaru didn't even know if she can. But they didn't have a choice.

They closed their eyes concentrating... Their auras manifested in the visible spectrum enveloping the Senshi in the glow of their trademark colors. Their hair rose up flowing in a spectral wind... The rocks around them began to break slowly floating upwards...

One discordant shout of "Sailor Teleport!" and one blinding flash later all that was left was... an incomplete circle of four girls surrounded by a circle of crushed bedrock.

Only Saturn jumped. Leaving open a very pressing question: _where to_? She didn't respond the communicator calls. The Mercury computer, after much thought, concluded "offline or out of range". Considering that the range of these magical gadgets included the entire inner system, up to and including the asteroid belt, the prognosis came out somehow not comforting.

As for the four of them, they were stuck in the Siberian backwater.

(シーンブレイク)

Ranma meanwhile finished sharing the joyless news with Ami.

"I think," the girl genius explained without conviction, "this is somehow related to our world's properties distorting because of transfusion of two universes. Many things that were possible before became impossible now, including the Jusenkyou magic. It's a pure miracle that our Senshi magic still works. I hope we'll find a way to reverse these changes... But I cannot promise. Even Sailor Moon's powers react violently and unpredictably with these alien—"

"In short, it could turn out that I'm stuck for good." Ranma swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. "And that I'll have to live the rest of my life as a hundred percent woman?" There were icy creeps along her back. The fear to be stuck forever that seemed defeated after that battle on Mount Horai... It turned out it wasn't gone, it was there, slumbering until time was right.(note 2)

Compared to everything they went through this wasn't the end of the world, far from it. But Ranma felt himself in deep shit. She shuddered. All these chilling sides of being a girl he managed to dodge till now, pretending it wasn't for real: the periods, the ever-present background of male attention, the risk of specific diseases and even the probability to get knocked up in some idiotic way...(note 3) All these horrors suddenly drew close with mocking grins: you won't get away now, there's nowhere to run. "Damn it, why does this crap keep happening to me?" She wanted to hit her head against something hard. Repeatedly.

"Don't be afraid, I'm with you." Akane held her spouse by the shoulders. "I won't abandon you, ever!" She lifted the red-haired head up with one hand and looked into the eyes welling up with tears of angry impotence. "For you I'll..." She tensed, overcoming something inside. "I'll become a full lesbian!" She abruptly slammed her lips into the other girl's lips choking her in an awkward but energetic kiss while squeezing her in a tight hug.

"Mmgm?" Ranma boggled. This was unexpected! So unlike Akane, what with her vehement resent of the very idea... But the other girl just shut her eyes tightly and hugged even tighter quashing them together to the point of their ribs creaking. Ranma felt ashamed of himself: Akane is a real girl, she lived with all of this from her birth never able to dodge! There's no way he'd be afraid of something that—

Akane started working with her tongue and all thoughts shot straight out of the pigtailed girl's head. She returned the hug, but gentler, without bone-crushing force. Unchaste thoughts started fogging her mind and Ranma's hands strayed lower...

They were interrupted by a brief flash accompanied with Ami's startled outcry. The blushing girls jumped apart and hurried towards their comrade who stood performing last observations of the death world through the open portal.

"Look!" Ami pointed somewhere beyond the arch. They stood beside her and looked outside. Far away, over the horizon, there was a characteristic mushroom cloud rising slowly to the sky, barely noticeable in the distance.

"Whoa!" Ranma said with disgust. "Who, I'd like to know, throws nukes around in a dead world?"

"It seems you have to abandon the idea of taking a shortcut," said Ami.

"No!" Akane retorted sharply as she turned to face Ami who in turn turned to face her. "We must go, Usagi could be wounded. She could be holding with the last of her strength onto a tree, with wolves waiting below. You told us there's a detailed description of that world in there. Read it and tell us what to avoid. If there's strong radiation there, we'll survive. It will heal anyway when we return and transform.

(シーンブレイク)

Saturn found herself floating amidst vast darkness pierced with countless sparks of star fire. It vasn't dark here for her eyes. It was warm here, cozy even, she felt herself at home. Saturn remembered: the Sailor Senshi were initially habitants of the open space. It was their home, the place where they stood their eternal vigil...

Soon she lost her sense of time floating mindlessly amidst the eternal peace.

But then there suddenly was light. Saturn turned around noticing with surprise that she was next to her planet. A black shadow covering almost half the sky was highlighted with a thin, fuzzy crescent of light, a blinding point of faraway sun budding off of it. The luminary looked so tiny.

Looking closer she noticed from the opposite side a thin, almost invisible line of light crossing the star-filled expanse: the rings, as they are seen from inside, from the gap between them and the planet where the girl orbited. To the right of her the ephemeral line disappeared in the planet's shadow.

When her amazement finally died down Saturn felt lonely. Her magic made her free from such things as thirst or hunger, from the very passage of time. She could float here for eternity time and again watching the tiny Sun rise and set of while her planet made its unhurried circles on its predestined path.

But she didn't have to, not anymore. She wasn't alone, not in this life, thanks to Serenity the elder who wished them all to be reborn together, on the same planet. And despite the pain of losses her place was there.(note 4)

Concentrating on the progenitor star, Saturn wished to be next to her mom and friends. With an amazing ease she slid through space and time.

"Oops..."

This was definitely not the place. Saturn surveyed the ruins of Silver Millennium strewn around her and Earth brightly shining in the night sky. What a place full of sadness... It seems teleporting isn't as easy as she thought. Even when you have more than enough power.

Saturn though about her mom who must be beside herself from worry. She concentrated on Earth and jumped again.

Castle Charon wasn't the place she expected to emerge. She tried again...

"I should have trained more," said the girl too wise for her age. The trip was very educating, going through the planetary castles, Oort cloud and, she suspected, through outskirts of the Alpha Centauri system. But everything begins to grow boring after a while.

"It seems, without the skill of setting the destination point properly I'm doomed to choose of well-treaded places of Silver Millennium," the warrior of Ruin and Rebirth thought after having returned for an uncounted time to her planet. "Maybe I should put more effort into it?" She concentrated on her mom and called upon her power. Not letting herself slip forward like she did in her previous attempts, she continued to call forth more and more, pushing with her will against the unruly magical might. Is it time...? No, a little more! Come on, just a bit! She can do it! She will make it! She can jump where _she_·needs!

If Saturn hadn't closed her eyes she'd notice a blinding purple aura surrounding her. She gathered so much power it would be enough to vaporize a medium-sized asteroid.

Unable to hold on any more, the girl jumped. This teleportation was unlike the previous ones, it felt like an endless falling into an abyss instead of a fleeting transition.

When the endless instant finally ended Saturn opened her tightly shut eyes hoping... She panicked finding only dark, starless void around her! She looked around frantically for some five times before she noticed, at last, the misty spiral of her home galaxy deep down below her feet. It was approximately the size of Moon as it seen fom Earth. The central bar glowed like a lamp through fog, the spiral arms looked like blurry, disheveled ghosts all but disappearing towards their ends.

"It seems I overshot a little," the girl concluded scratching sheepishly at the back of her head.

(シーンブレイク)

April 11, 2012. Translated May 20, 2012

**Author's notes:**

**1**  
Kimono aren't limited to elaborate and rich clothing. A ragged robe worn by a vagabond is also a kimono.

**2**  
Battle at Mount Horai concludes the Herb storyline (manga volume 24 and the beginning of Volume 25, doesn't show in the anime) where Ranma, Ryouga and Mousse barely avoided being locked in their cursed forms for life.

**3**  
There are at least _three_·storylines in the manga (volume 19 chapter 3; volume 26 chapter 5; volume ?？ chapter ?？ ) where Ranma, helpless by some or other reason, ends in the hands of some unfamiliar guy an a remote and desolate place. That's not counting two more stories featuring the permanent love pill and the koi fishing rod.

**4**  
Serenity didn't give them reincarnation, they have it by default. She just redirected it so that they all reincarnate in the same place in the same time period, along with thousands of people who lived and died on the Moon.

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— Orphus users (1 bugs so far)


	14. Dead Zone

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 14  
Dead Zone**

Two girls were striding across rocky hills devoid of life. There was not a single blade of grass. Small backpacks of some twenty killograms felt strangely heavy. Akane walked in front, full of unbending optimism despite all the risks of their chosen path. She was dressed in baggy camouflage pants and an unzipped shirt of the same coloration with a gray-green sweatshirt underneath. There were heavy ankle boots with ridgy soles on her feet. Ranma dragged behind her, gloomy and full of apprehension. She was dressed in her trademark red and black Chinese silks complete with kung-fu slippers fit for her female form.

"This just sucks," Ranma kept grumbling, huddled up from either displeasure or chilly winds that whiffled across rocks. "This place is fine but what would we do if we meet a serious river in the next world? How do we cross it?"

"Would you stop droning?" Akane snapped, her patience exhausted by constant hints at her greatest weakness. "What would we do if we meet a herd of cats? Should we have taken a dog with us? Stop pestering me, I got enough headache with this thing." She shook the medallion in annoyance.

"I'm sorry," replied Ranma. Judging by her tone she wasn't sorry at all. "This just, you know, grates. We are barely at the start and here I feel worn out." She snorted. "But you're right. Enough whining, no matter how much this world gets to you..." She fell silent, lost in thought. For some time the silence was broken only by pebbles crunching under their feet and the wind whistling. Then Ranma slapped her forehead and continued in a careless tone: "Well, I'm whining because I got stuck. But in all honesty I got off easy. Shampoo was hit much harder."

"What did you say?" Akane stopped turning around to face her.

"She got locked as a cat, such a stupid coincidence."

"Such a disaster!" Akane said with a sincere compassion. "I'd hoped that at least that pest would be spared."

"I too," agreed Ranma. "Well, pops doesn't count, he just doesn't care. But not blind idiot nor the clingy cat deserve this. But no luck. It was painful to even look at her. Ears hanging down, eyes dull, didn't even jump me... Well, I didn't even have time to say my condolences. Mousse went ape-shit as soon as he recognized me. He just blew his top. Well, I can sympathize, he had to blame someone to relieve the stress and stuff. And here I walk in, conveniently... In short, I tied him with his own chains and handed him to the old ghoul. But it was such a fuss..."

"All right," Akane turned around to walk forward with the same energy. "The sooner we get Sailor Moon back, the sooner everything will be back to normal. I hope at least P-chan was in his human form when it happened."

Ranma grumbled something unintelligible in agreement as she thoughts back to the time when the Great and Terrible Revelation ended not with an all-consuming explosion but with a whimper. Akane didn't even change her disposition towards Ryouga, although she took a habit of sarcastically calling him "P-chan" regardless of form. This always made the oaf to become flustered and make himself scarce.

(シーンブレイク)

(before they ventured forth)

"You won't be able to carry it," Akane said doubtfully.

"Well, what could we do?" Ranma tied her backpack shut. "It's against everything I know to go without normal supplies on a serious travel." She critically weighed the backpack on one finger. "We are cutting into the bare minimum as it is. If we just knew what to expect in the worlds after this one..." She put the backpack on.

"We went over this already," grumbled Akane. "Don't push Ami."

"I've tried many approaches," the girl genius replied with guilt in her voice. "But so far this limitation looks to be a fundamental law not unlike the relativity principles. If you sacrifice seventy percent of your quota—"

"No means no," Akane cut in sharply. "His quota is our contingency reserve. We don't know where we would need it!"

"I don't object to that," Ranma agreed in an appeasing tone as she went towards the arch. "Ahs-seven Tkhachschas Eet-Suht, open the portal in this aperture to, err, where it led before."

"Warning," the mechanical voice said. "Err doesn't parse to valid coordinates. Attention, opening the portal using previous coordinates."

"Well," Ranma said as she made a tentative step through the portal. She immediately grunted bending down under the weight of her backpack. She didn't give up, even running a circle of couple hundred meters on unsteady feet. Then she returned, panting, and swore quietly as she threw the backpack off.

"I've told you," Akane summed up. "Let's unload more."

"This sucks," grumbled Ranma throwing things out of the backpack. Things their very lives could depend upon. "It was barely forty kilograms!"

(シーンブレイク)

So she learned, up close and personally, the meaning of "zero ki factor". This unnatural world rejected the spiritual force as it rejected the force of magic. Both girls felt an unpleasant weight, like a ponderous stone slab hanging santimetres above one's head. It was oppressive by its very presence. Any attempts to use ki, frequent because they were reflectory, butted against this invisible, otherwise almost imperceptible barrier. All they had left was their muscle power. This turned them into mere mortals, albeit highly trained ones. They've been able to take only barest minimum of supplies, some twenty kilograms each. They left most of necessary things behind and were now relying on blind luck to a degree.

They had far to go. There was nothing to look at among these monotonously-lifeless rocky hills. There was nothing to distract them from various unwanted thoughts creeping in on them unobtrusively like nuzzling cats. If ki suppressing in the next world turns out to be as draconian as here, how far would they be able to keep going? How long would they be able to hold on? No one of them could tell for sure. Ami just didn't have enough data and time. What for Ranma herself... She didn't even have to concentrate to feel this world pressing on her, unobtrusively but persistently, trying to turn her into dead matter. Her spirit resisted successfully, but its strength was finite while the patient, strangling presence was eternal. Their voyage was akin to a dive: if you could hold your breath long enough you'll be fine. If you couldn't, there would be more fish food... Well, there were no fishes here, not anymore. Every living thing in this graveyard world died long ago. It was even a bit hard to breathe. Ami reassured them that the atmosphere remained breathable despite declining oxygen levels, there was nothing to replenish it.

What was most vexing, she couldn't tell for how long she'd be able to hold on. Like someone diving for the first time in their life she could only tell her time was running out. But would it suffice to reach the bottom and return? Would she surface barely out of breath or fade into darkness writhing from pain in her lungs?

In short, there were lots of reasons to be optimistic. Because the ki suppression turned out to be only the tip of the iceberg.

(シーンブレイク)

(before they ventured forth)

"Radioactivity?" Akane shouted suddenly, attracting Ranma's attention to herself and Ami.

"I'm afraid so," the girl genius replied, completely immersed in the tiny medallion screen. "And its levels are quite high. The Chernobyl zone is much safer, for comparison."

"Err, What's that Chenoby... howzyacallit?" Ranma asked trying to not look particularly interested. Better make a fool of yourself than be sorry later, this lesson she did learn.

"You are so ignorant it hurts!" Akane berated her indignantly. "Chernu... In short, it's a nuclear power plant that blew up in... ninety six? Or was it... er..." She fell silent, embarrassed. Ranma smirked confirming her obnoxiousness.

"It was the worst nuclear disaster our world knows of today," Ami poitely interrupted them. "Chernobyl is a Russian nuclear power plant that exploded in ninety eighty six. Luckily, there were no more disasters comparable in scale. The consequences were terrible: a huge area has been irradiated, people living there either evacuated or died from radiation sickness in the years to follow. The land around the plant became unsuitable for human habitation for hundreds of years to come. Living organism are often subject to horrible mutations there... Well, you know, six-legged rabbits, pines with foot-long needles... The favorite material of the yellow press." She was silent for a while, then added: "I hope our domestic nuclear plants are built with better safety measures."

"And that zone is safe compared to this place?" Ranma didn't like the news.

"In your place I wouldn't worry about the radiation," said Ami. "Its distribution is highly uneven, you'll be able to avoid dangerous areas using the map id does have in there." She pointed at the medallion. "No, what worries me is the concept of 'temporal noise' described here. I never met anything even remotely similar, not in the modern science nor in the records of Silver Mmillennium."

"Something worse than radioactivity?" Ranma asked with disbelief while dark apprehension slithered from the depths of her mind like a tenderly caressing viper.

"Yes," Ami replied slowly, engrossed in reading. "This article says it disrupts the DNA replication mechanism leading to a sharp decline in the cells dividing process. Even a small exposure results in multicellular organisms almost completely losing their regenerative abilities."

"Umm, care to dumb it down for us less educated people?" hinted Ranma. "What did all of this mean? Wounds would stop healing or what?"

"Much worse," Ami replied absently, her eyes focused on the screen." The overall effect is analogous to premature aging akin to one caused by some genetic diseases, but even sharper." She lifted her eyes looking directly at Ranma. "Do you know that our bodies are subject to constant degradation? Only our regenerative mechanisms allow us to live decades instead of months by constantly replacing worn-out cells."

"Months?" Ranma swallowed.

"That's right," Ami replied firmly. "Pass through a temporal noise zone, and your body would grow old and decrepit in only few months.

Ranma petrified as she imagined herself in Cologne's hide. Her hair stood upright, including the pigtail.

"By the way, that is the main reason we need regular sleep," Ami finished absently as she turned back to the medallion, thus missing the Ranma-shaped stone statue behind her back. "The regeneration works only when we sleep... Or when we are in our Senshi forms."

Ranma shattered into a pile of rocks and sand.

(シーンブレイク)

Their path not only led across deceptively-flat rocky hills but also meandered ungodly because of temporal noise zones peppering the land thickly. There were also spots of extreme radioactivity, albeit much rarer.

Ranma was walking silently after Akane who at times cast glances at the tiny medallion screen correcting their course. The medallion was pinging merrily as it counted radiation dose. Even the relatively 'clean' places had levels fifteen times higher any sane sanitary limits.

But the radioactivity was a pure triviality compared to...

(シーンブレイク)

(before they ventured forth)

"Ka-who?" Ranma repeated, dumbfounded.

"Khas-eeschaeets," explained Ami. "Large-scale inorganic life-forms who produce nuclear explosions during their mating season. Unfortunately, their mating season is currently at its peak, as you could see for yourselves a minute ago."

"What sort of beasts are they that they make nuclear explosions when they... umm... do this and that?" Ranma was taken aback.

"There's very little about them here," Ami replied in an apologizing voice. "They are endemic to worlds with zero ki factor. As human survival in such worlds for any significant duration is impossible, there's just no one to study them. At least I think so." She concentrated on the screen. "Let's see. Approximately a kilometer in diameter, feed by digging up mountains and absorbing various minerals. While feeding, resemble a crater filled with oil... So are they liquid then...? While moving they form a vortex consisting of their own matter mixed with absorbed rock material. Hmmm... A typical vortex has a diameter of one to three kilometers, height two to five. Their movement has an intense landscape-forming effect. The best repellent is... a nuclear device ranging from one to ten kilotons. A direct hit makes them retreat or change their course... And the last piece of information, although this one is marked as unconfirmed: they are radioactive." Ami lifted her eyes from the screen. "If that is true then approaching them, even as far as several kilometers, especially downwind, would be lethal. And beware of their tracks."

"Great," grumbled Ranma. Such fellows could squash Godzilla and not even notice. "Is it at least possible to run away from them?"

"A second." Ami browsed for a little while. "Speed varies from twenty to forty kilometers per hour."

"Which means, unlikely," Ranma summed up even more grimly. "Without your ki, you can't run like that, not for long. All we could do is notice them from afar and move across their course.

(シーンブレイク)

"How do you think, did these hashu-yshaitu finish their, er, business?" Ranma asked rhetorically, just to keep conversation going.

Their problem was that the portal laid in the direction where yesterday the mysterious khas-eeschaeets flashed their nuclear bangs. Ami reassured them that the unstudied monsters were more than a hundred kilometers away while the portal was much closer, but... Who could know where'd they crawl. Two times already the girls had to cross immense furrows of crushed rock plowed through terrain, where the radiation counter was going mad screeching like a butchered pig. One didn't have to be a genius to understand whose tracks these were.

"I hope they did," Akane reassured her husband. "And if not, you know what to do: drop to the ground your feet to the flash and pray vigorously..." The joke came out strained and unfunny. A long, rolling rumbling came from the horizon, as if mocking them. Both girls started.

"You know, I feel just naked without my ki," admitted Ranma. "As if the jackassery with our Senshi magic wasn't enough."

"You think I don't?" replied Akane. "It feels like turning half blind and deaf. I haven't even noticed when I got used to my Senshi powers." She touched her henshin pen hanging on a thick cord under her sweatshirt, currently unresponsive and useless. "It'd do us good to visit here from time to time. Just to not forget how it is, to be a common mortal."

Ranma agreed completely.

Then they ran into a dead end and were forced to backtrack, all the while berating the useless medallion. Granted, the tricky mechanism had a built-in map of deadly zones. But it was building it on the fly, scanning around with something akin to a radar. The range of this thing was disgustingly small, a kilometer or two at best. These zones were indistinguishable for the eye representing the same repeating rocky slopes. Thus the girls moved like moles in a dark labyrinth making a lot of unnecessary footwork. What should they do if they stumble on a khas-eeschaeet and have to flee... The very thought was making them ill.

Besides, the travelers have already managed to get into danger several times thanks to Akane's idiotic mistakes. She would set a wrong scanning mode, or map scale, or just look at the screen sideways — this one she still felt ashamed of. Luckily she haven't managed yet to find an option to turn off the voice warnings. When it detected a danger the medallion would employ a quite shrill siren making the girls run back along their own tracks.

(シーンブレイク)

Nodoka, as always clad in her impeccable kimono, sat drinking tea with a perfect serenity - a manifestation of her name itself.(note 1) Across the table there sat a gloomy panda surrounded by a black cloud of depression.

A tablet rose slowly held in a furry paw: "Oh the ungrateful son of mine..."

"Now-now, dear. Don't be so glum. I'm sure he'll find a way to unlock the curses. Both his and yours."

The panda livened a bit raising an another tablet: "He didn't even offer to take his father with him!"

"Look at it this way: my manly son went on a journey together with his wife, alone. Taking his father along would be somewhat... awkward."

The panda flipped up a tablet, shocked: "But he's stuck as a girl!"

"Oh, I'm sure that wouldn't be an obstacle for my manly son," Nodoka parried serenely and sipped her tea.

She noted with satisfaction that pandas, it turns out, _could_·become green.

After all, _she_·knew exactly where and why her son went.

He will prevail. Everything will be well.

(シーンブレイク)

"Oh my Shampoo!" **sob** "How could he do this to you!-"

Bonk "Shut up, duck-dolt. I need to concentrate."

"Meow?"

"Yes, granddaughter. There's something very wrong with the world."

(シーンブレイク)

Five hours of walking at an exhausting pace resulted only in weariness. Ranma and Akane found, to their disgust, that they made much less than anticipated to. Akane gained a permanently-angry grimace and unending eye twitch while Ranma got enriched with several lumps. Also, her ability to shut up in time improved by few percent. She accepted the beatings with a philosophical patience: after all, Akane couldn't just smash the medallion against a handy boulder, couldn't she? But her feelings towards it definitely needed some outlet!

As she descended from yet another rocky hill they came upon a strange object. It was the first time they met something that wasn't rock. There was some bunch of hard gray fibres sticking out of the ground, like a scruffy end of an immense rope some half a meter in diameter.

"How do you think, what it is?" Akane asked as she cautiously walked around the unknown object keeping a safe distance.

"A tree," Ranma replied like it was going without saying. She walked up to it and kicked at the gray fibres. These proved to be hard but brittle, partly shattering from her slight kick. "A former one." Ranma stopped kicking a the ragged remains and ran to catch up with Akane. "I wonder, how many years has passed since everything has died here? Even a tree-stump dried up to pieces even though it couldn't rot."

"Thank you for inspiration," growled Akane. "This... presses like a huge rock upon my soul. It's sure nice to know, in addition that we are walking a graveyard."

"Come on, I haven't said anything wrong?" Ranma tried to defend herself.

"I don't know about you, but I had hoped there was never a life to begin with." The short haired girl sighed. "Honestly, it's better to stay ignorant sometimes."

They went out onto a flat plain covered with large bumps of gravel. But the bumps posed no obstacle, being very flat and packed to a concrete hardiness. The girls walked briskly. Sometimes they met small sand banks reminding Akane of that desert. She felt glad it was cold here, for a change. Their energetic pace served the girls a good protection from the dry, piercing wind.

They meandered only half an hour to cross the plain. Akane fumbled over the keyboard to find, to her joy, a large zone practically free of temporal noise. Its edge was close. She shared the good news with Ranma.

The redhead hmmphed sceptically making Akane fume.

They turned towards a hill rising over the flat plain. Its slope turned to be a mix of pit gravel and crushed rocks. They started climbing it, sometimes using their hands.

When they reached a couple hundred meters above the plain, Akane turned to look back. She felt a nasty chill crawling along her spine: from this height, the lumps of gravel on the plain they left formed a too-regular pattern. In places one could discern wider lines cutting through this pattern. She shuddered internally feeling like she inadvertently walked over someone's grave.

"Yeah, right, that's a city," Ranma consented grimly, answering the silent question. "I don't know how many centuries passed for everything to crumble like that, but people definitely lived here... Well, that's very sad but I'm more concerned about the hill we're climbing right now. I don't like it. Everywhere else it's rock, but here it's pit gravel and crushed rock. Fresh, crumbling. Reminds me the tracks of these... atomic ones. By the way, there's a question: we were dashing across these furrows without caution. Were there no temporal death zones?"

"To think of it, you are right." Akane even stopped from such a revelation. "The tracks were clean of temporal noise! It seems, these creatures clean it away as they move. We need to check it if we come upon a track going in the right direction. We could walk it then!"

"What about the radioactivity?" Ranma was sceptical.

"It's only one or two rems per hour," Akane waved her concerns aside. "It's nothing." (note 2)

"How much is that?" Ranma didn't give up. "Is it much, or is it little?"

"Waitamoment, will you!" Akane growled as she started fighting the medallion controls which made her stumble on the rocky mess. "Oh, I see... Why did they have to spawn so many of these! Sieverts, grays... How could I make sense of it? Wait, I'll call up the calculator!" She continued hitting the keys in a frenzy. Then she sighed and slammed the medallion shut. "It's much. But we'd have to spend a day there to get radiation sickness. And a week or two to die. The ki suppression would kill us long before that... Let's move!"

"It's all right then," agreed Ranma. "Transforming will heal us us from radiation when we return. It's enough that it's not lethal. It's decided then— Whoopsie..." The last part was said in a hushed, frightened voice.

Akane rushed to catch up with the pigtailed girl, then froze in her tracks. There was a round, funnel-shaped crated stretching before them, several hundred meters across. Most of it was occupied by a still mirror of shiny black liquid. It really looked like a lake of oil.

"Hashushaitu," Ranma whispered weakly like the alien non-life form could hear her. Or could it? Both girls backed away carefully, trying not to disturb a single rock. They froze hid by the crater rim.

Akane started tapping the keys. She was frowning more and more. Then she returned to the rim, looking at the serene "lake" warily. She started tapping again.

"So there are no passes to the sides of it?" Ranma asked, already feeling where this was going.

"Exactly." Akane slammed the medallion shut. Exuding determination she began climbing down into the crater, carefully but quickly. "No matter, we'll sneak by quickly. It's probably sleeping so it won't notice us."

"What about the radioactivity?" Ranma asked as she caught up with her.

The medallion started emitting an especially shrill sound not heard before. Akane stopped. She frowned looking at the screen.

"Well... We will still live," she finally whispered as she went forward. But Ranma did not miss an uncertain pause in her words and her involuntarily quickening pace.

"Wait," the redhead whispered. "It's the dust, right? Let's cover our faces with wet rags then."

"A good idea." Akane stopped. "But we don't have any rags."

"What about gauze from the first aid kit?"

They wrapped each other hastily. Ranma performed her part perfectly, then had to fall behind and redo Akane's handicraft. She could not see nor breathe in that knot!

(シーンブレイク)

"Something is gnawing at you," Mars stated matter-of-factly as she walked up to Mercury who was pacing nervously back to and fro. She crossed her arms. "Don't pretend it's nothing, I have noticed you gnawing at your glove. Come on, spill it." She turned even grimier. "What is it this time?"

"I haven't told them everything," the bluette admitted with a heavy sigh. Her eyes were laden with self-recrimination. "I thought it more important to concentrate on the primary matters, to avoid overloading Akane-chan with details - she barely held at it was. But..."

"And that's all?" Rei asked disbelievingly. "There's nothing to feel guilty about. You have to simplify at every turn, for us the deprived of genius to get it. Don't fret, they're hardy gals, they'll figure it on their own."

"Yes, but..." Mercury wasn't giving up. "That information could prove vital. I didn't think they'd need it - but now, in hindsight—"

"What's so extra-important did you omit?" Now Mars was growing worried too.

"It concerns these non-organic life forms, khas-eeschaeets." Mercury began pacing to and fro without noticing it. "Or, more precisely, their sensitivity. All sources point that they are able to feel human presence from a distance up to five kilometers. They inevitably wake up and start pursuing. It is unknown if such behavior is caused by aggression or curiosity, but its result is always logically fatal."

"Well, I don't think they'd have a reason to approach these things," Rei said trying to calm her down. Without much conviction, though. "They should be easily spotted from afar, right?"

Ami just nodded silently. She wasn't going to elaborate the real reason why she didn't tell them. According to her calculations, the forty kph these things could make meant there was absolutely no chance of survival if Ranma and Akane got close to one. And with stationary khas-eeschaeets being essentially holes in the ground there was practically no chance of noticing them in the rough terrain until it was too late. She shouldn't have worried though, her scans showed that the closest one was a hundred kilometers away, well past the transport node. So the probability that they stumble on a khas-eeschaeet, close to zero, multiplied by probability to notice it in time gave out an infinitezimal value. While probability of Akane forgetting something and making a mistake while handling the interactor would be much higher, with consequences no less lethal. So Ami had to avoid overloading the raven-haired girl with information. Having never worked a cellular phone, not to mention a computer, Akane looked like her head was going to explode from learning too much at once. And there was no time to teach Ranma, even less tech-savy a person, while she was ferrying supplies back and forth and preparing them.

So, omitting this vital but very unlikely part was the right decision, increasing their chances of survival.

And yet, a nagging doubt remained.

(シーンブレイク)

"Bugger!" Akane whispered a curse. She turned more to the left, climbing down almost to the surface of the oily-black lake. "Why's there a death zone if they clean them up?"

The medallion scared them almost to the point of soiling their pants as it screeched like a fire siren. Akane fumbled frantically missing the keys. Finally she made it shut up, but not without stumbling in the process. Several rocks rolled down from under her feet splashing down into the black liquid. The girls froze.

The dead silence stretched on and on, undisturbed. There wasn't even a wind.

"It seems, we got off lucky," Ranma whispered finally.

Several bubbles emerged from the black liquid with a deep, resounding gurgling sound. Swelling up to some half a meter, they popped in showers of viscous splatter. Both girls felt their hearts skip a bit.

Then there was silence again.

"Let's go," Akane whispered, her voice quivering slightly. "The sooner—"

The medallion shrieked like a police siren whose aching foot was stepped upon. Akane's eyes darted toward the screen, then widened, and she dashed along the shore abandoning all care. Rocks kept rolling from under her feet disappearing with a splash in the black liquid.

"What got into you?" Ranma called running after her.

"Three hundred rems per hour!" Akane replied briskly as she tried to fiddle with the medallion on the run, her eyes tied to the screen. She stumbled, causing a landslide. Rocks splattered down into the lake disappearing with dull splashes. By some reason there were no waves. "Bugger!" She took to the right, up the slope towards a small saddle in the crater rim. "These bubbles probably released radiation!"

Ranma glanced back. There were dozens of bubbles swelling on the oily-black surface along the shore, denoting the path of their recent dash. Below the place where Akane caused landslide, the surface was rising in one huge bump! The redhead flew forward like she grew wings. Soon she outran her wife.

Both let breathes of relief as they crossed the saddle. But they didn't slow down.

"How do you think, did we wake it up?" Ranma asked glancing back.

"I hope we didn't," replied Akane. "And even if we did, that it wakes up slowly as Nabiki-oneechan... What did I say? There it is, a clean way!

There was a huge furrow of gravel and crushed rock stretching ahead of them, plowing through hills and cliffs alike. It stretched in almost the right direction, a bit wavy but generally going straight.

"Clean?" asked Ranma. She may have had a great endurance, but she'd definitely not enjoy running across a mess of sharp rocks in her thin-soled shoes. Especially without her usual almost-invincibility given by her ki.

"Well, it's only five rems per hour," Akane replied as she misunderstood the question. "But running along this thing we'll reach the transport node in a hour!"

"Maybe we could run close to the edge?" Ranma suggested. "It's easier there."

But there were temporal noise zones near the edge, only the center of the turned out to be free of them.

They kept running along the center of this titanic furrow counting sharp rocks with their feet as the medallion clicked merrily counting millirems. Their gauze masks were drying quickly in the dead, dry air forcing them to waste the priceless water. Even the burning sun felt lifeless.

When Ranma started thinking her feet would fall off anytime soon Akane slowed to a walk examining something on the tiny screen. "It's time to turn," she said briskly. "We're almost there, fourteen hundred meters more and we'll be at the transport node!"

A lone mountain was rising to the right of them. The not yet visible pyramid, most probably, rested on its flat top. To turn right they had to find a gap between death zones first, before they could leave the furrow. They started zigging and zagging again, stumbling blindly like lab rats in a labyrinth. Ten steps forward, nine back. All across a mountainside. Up and down. Their path resembled a meandering counter-clockwise spiral going around the lone mountain. Slowly but surely they approached the top.

"Can we just break through?" Ranma suggested finally. Just to break the silence: the horror at the thought of premature aging didn't go away.

"Don't say nonsense," Akane absently waved her away, scrutinizing the screen with such a concentration she was unable to recognize a rhetoric question. "Did you forget anyway? The adverse factor of temporal noise depends only from distance passed through it, the time you spend in it doesn't matter. It has no difference if you 'break through' quickly or crawl through it, the result will be the same."

"I know that... Ah, forget I asked."

They continued to meander.

They were several hundred meters directly above the place where they started, having made a full circle around the mountain, when Ranma looked into the distance hoping to see the wall of crater containing the creepy 'lake'. She swore: "Aw, damn asshole! Akane, look! It seems it woke up!"

"Don't distract me! Who woke up?"

"Hashushaitu, who else." Ranma pointed towards the horizon. From the height they reached, the long, slightly wavy trench stretching towards the crater was visible for most of its length, showing as loops and twists partly hidden by hills. The crater itself, however, wasn't visible, hidden by a inky-black cloud swelling as they watched it. Lightning flashed through the deep darkness time and again. They could feel the ground under their feet tremble.

"Oh, please, no!" Akane exclaimed as her eyes widened in fright. "Come on, quickly!" She grabbed the medallion peering at its screen so intensely that her eyes started watering up.

"Look! We can go here!" Ranma leaned across her shoulder pointing with her finger at the screen and distracting her with useful advices.

Choosing the route, they ran like panicking lab rats in a burning labyrinth jostling each other at the turns, stumbling the wrong way in haste and bickering. Akane was turning the medallion in her hands to match the map with their direction. She was fumbling, the chain was getting in the way, it was no easier to orient using a rotated map. Every turn leading backwards gave them a fine opportunity to behold the approaching monstrosity. The black cloud formed a vortex reminiscent of a bottom half of an gigantic twister: wide at the bottom, then narrowing and gradually turning into a slowly undulating trunk encircled with madly rotating crags. Leaving no freedom for interpretation, the trunk kept stretching right towards the girls. With a deceptive slowness, the rotating arch traversed the ten kilometers separating them from the monster. Soon it was descending onto them, suppressing by its scale alone. They missed the moment when it turned into a looming black throat feeling like the sky itself was falling onto them in a whirl of crushed rock. Around them, rocks were falling here and there having fallen out of the titan's body. Some of them were the size of a bus.

"We got no other way, we have to take a shortcut!" Ranma shouted trying to overcome the rumbling so low it felt more as a vibration in their bones than a sound. "Or there'd be no one to grow old!"

Hounded, Akane tore her eyes from the screen where she tried to tell left from right. Why was it so dark? She lifted her eyes and stared in mute horror at the black vortex descending onto them, swirling with swarms of broken crags.

"Watch out!" Ranma grabbed her, pushing desperately with her feet in a circle throw. Putting in all her strength, she managed to throw both of them some meager couple meters aside. Still, it was enough for a boulder to miss them. It pulverized the rocks where Akane stood a moment ago and ricocheted away. Not wasting her time, Ranma jumped onto her feet grabbing Akane and making a strained dash towards the pyramid.

The exhausting weakness crushed onto them like a strike at one's solar plexus. The medallion started emitting a nasty shrill warble. Ranma stumbled dropping Akane and falling on top of her. The deadening absence of ki, which was pressing little by little before, suddenly grew all-powerful, crushing and choking them, demanding that they turn into a dead and inert matter right then and there!

Akane came to her senses, jumping up onto all fours with the last remains of her strength. She started dragging Ranma back by her collar. A step, a three more, and they were able to stand up, if shakily. In the rapidly thickening darkness, the girls stared at each other, their eyes full of hopelessness and sorrow. They did not need words to understand: the zone of temporal noise wasn't just dangerous, as they thought. Death waited for them there, immediate and unavoidable, after the first dozen steps. It wasn't risky to take a shortcut, it was impossible. The hurricane wind flapped their clothing and hair, the ground was vibrating with such a force that their hands and feet touching it were itching and numbing. A hailstorm of boulders was falling from the sky hacking away at the rocky ground around them.

The medallion emitted a shrill signal heard even through the all-penetrating rumble. A radiation warning. The girls came to their senses and looked around. They felt a surge of hope: the vortex was slowing down! The lower the black doom loomed, the slower it approached the ground!

Ranma pushed Akane in the shoulder pointing at the medallion. The redhead herself stood watching for the rocks incoming from the darkness. It was almost impossible to notice the flying boulders and whole crags: the roaring darkness became almost impenetrable by that moment. Miss one, or be too slow to dodge, and you'll stay forever on this mountaintop in a thin layer. It was very disconcerting for Ranma to realize that a danger not usually lethal for her turned into a risk to become a wet smear.

Akane figured their way and they dashed to the right, against the wind. There's the last loop! The hurricane force wind pushed them back, threatening to blow them off their feet. Stumbling and supporting each other, they overcame its push reaching a bend. They turned around a death zone salient and turned around to the left, desperately pushing with their feet to slow their movement and not let the wind suck them up and carry them into the roaring meat-grinder.

The pyramid emerged first as a constant cracking that stood out of the overall roar, rocks smashing against the unyielding walls of the edifice. Then it greeted them with a hail of small shards slashing at the girls painfully. Finally they stumbled onto a slanted wall praying that the entrance won't be on the opposite side. They were very lucky: a force field covering the entrance emerged a half dozen steps ahead, glowing dully. Pushing with the last of their strength, flat against the pyramid wall, they let the wind carry them to it. Barely managing to push through the resilient, opalescent membrane they fell to their knees and hands, breathing hoarsely in the silence of the mirror hall. There was only a quiet, menacing hum reaching through the force field and Ranma wondered how did they manage to get through it if it is so powerful?

Not even taking time to catch her breath, Akane started tapping the keys with her shaking fingers.

Right, thought Ranma. We have to go. No one can tell how long this pyramid would hold. Forget the pyramid, it'll uproot the whole mountain any moment now! She turned back, crawling warily away from the entrance arch visible clearly thanks to the dull opalescence of the membrane. Like a liquid pearl or swirls of milk in coffee. Her wariness proved justified as something crashed against the field, bending it in. Flashing for a brief moment with concentric rings, the ephemeral barrier straightened returning to the weak glow of opalescence. Ranma felt surprised as she noticed that the floor wasn't vibrating at all. It felt creepy: that thing outside was probably grinding the whole mountain to gravel, but here, inside, it was eerily calm. The silence was broken only by the quiet hum from the entrance and the sound of Akane tapping the keys.

She got no time to contemplate on this further as the hall was flooded with light and Akane shouted "Go!" as she tore the layers of blackened gauze off her face.

Ranma didn't need a second invitation.

(シーンブレイク)

Saturn materialized on an edge of a giant crater. There was atmosphere present - and, it seems, it was breathable! The girl's spirit lifted. The endless attempts to teleport back to earth wore at it until she felt numb. Did she make it at last? She started looking around hungrily. The dark rock under her feet was rising from the white shroud of snow in serrated ridges. The dull disc of the Sun was half-hidden by the horizon. Below, under the rocky slopes, a frozen plain of ocean stretched wide and far.

Definitely Earth. And the crater — she felt an unmistakable mystic 'aftertaste' in the air — was all that remained of Dark Kingdom, an impressive reminder for the enemies not to mess with Sailor Moon. Pity that the spell of unnoticeability put by Beryl on this Arctic island still held, so the enemies had the tendency to miss the hint.

Saturn sat on the crater edge and sighed. She did not dare to test her fate by teleporting again. She'd prefer to walk and swim from here to Tokyo, however many thousand kilometers separated her from home.

(シーンブレイク)

April 30, 2012. Translated June 12, 2012

**Author's notes:**

**1**  
Nodoka (長閑 or のどか) means "Tranquil"

**2**  
"Rem" - Roentgen equivalent man. Measures absorbed dose in rads with a correction according to various factors that affecting how harmful the absorbed radiation is for a living organism. Is equal to rad for gamma radiation. Akane is way too optimistic about this, as one Rem is a significant dose. 1000 is definitely lethal, while 200 will probably make you wish it was lethal. Sievert is a modern unit equal to 100 Rem.

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— Crystal

— PusakuronuOrphus users (2 bugs so far)-


	15. The Charm of Natural Wilderness

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 15  
The Charm of Natural Wilderness**

Ranma felt immense relief when she found herself and Akane in a sparse tropical forest. And it wasn't just because of the chorus of sounds proclaiming "Life thrives here. And how!"

Something reviviscent was returning, like a gulp of icy water after a parched desert. Only now, when it was gone, they could comprehend the scale of the weight that had been oppressing them.

Ki worked again. The girls flew in huge leaps rebounding off springy palm trees. Their backpacks regained the weight of a feather.

"Wait," Ranma injected between leaps. "Are we going... in the right direction?"

Her wife didn't have time to reply as the forest ended. The girls landed on a beach of white sand. A crisp blue lagoon stretched before them, covered with slight ripples. Tropical sun was pouring its heat from the sky adorned with rare puffs of white clouds.

Akane opened the medallion digging in it for a while. She then walked up to the surf where small waves were lapping at the sand. She tried to see something at the left but there was a small peninsula overgrown with palm trees posing an obstacle that way. She unfastened her heavy ankle-boots throwing them off and walked further away from the shore trying to take a look beyond the peninsula. The water was very shallow here so she had passed about twenty meters when it rose above her knees. Small waves were splashing at her threatening to wet her trousers up to her undies.

"What's so important there?" Ranma finally unwrapped the gauze from her head. She critically examined it. Blackened from _radioactive_·dust it probably wasn't suitable even as rags. She had to wash her clothes too! The redhead walked to the shore to taste the water. It was oceanic salty. It was better to wait until they come upon a sweet water source, or the silk will end all covered in salt splotches.

Akane walked out of the water and started bounding in huge leaps to the left, towards the peninsula. Ranma followed her. From the tip of the peninsula they managed, at last, to see a tiny blue triangle on the horizon. I t was barely discernible against the sky.

"Bugger," Akane commented digging again in the medallion. "It's right in the center of this lagoon.

Ranma glanced at a chain of islands overgrown with palm trees to the left of them. It receded into distance in a relatively straight line, not exactly in the direction they needed. "What about running to the closest island first? We can go much faster by land than by swimming anyway."

"Are you mocking me?" Akane glared at her.

"No, no," Ranma backed away. "I got an inflatable air-bed! I'll tug you."

"Oh... Good thinking..." Akane peered at the screen estimating something and swearing at the awkward controls. "There are no islands at that side, only shallows and the reef. But we can go to the last island and swim from there." She closed the medallion.

"All right. All the more so it's ebb now."

The girls dashed along the coast, at times cutting by palm tree tops when the shore formed a point. But there it was, the first strait between the islands.

"It seems shallow, we probably can ford it," Ranma noted while she pulled her clothes off. She rolled them up intent of putting the bundle away in her backpack.

"Wait, you'll contaminate our things with radioactive dust," Akane tried to stop her.

"I've rolled it inside out—"

"No, that won't do," Akane cut her off flatly. "Wash it. Salt won't ruin it right away. We have our food is in that backpack."

"All in plastic wrappings—"

"And our pots, without any wrappings. Try to recall what Ami told us about swallowing particles."

"I remember it, all right," Ranma grumbled as she walked deeper, in only her boxers, and started rinsing her clothing.

"Don't forget your hair," Akane added as she joined her.

Ranma glanced at her and froze, staring. Akane undressed — meaning she took off everything — and was now imitating a racoon, water foaming around her hands from the rapid motion. Then she bent down dipping her head and did the same to her hair. A goofy, dreamy smile bloomed on the redhead's face against her will.

Akane straightened up, snorting the water out. She noticed the pigtailed girl standing here staring at her. Her eyes reflected a tug-o-war of contradicting emotions that culminated in a fierce "Are you here to wash or to ogle me with that stupid smile?"

Ranma hastily turned around and started to rinse. She failed to banish the smile from her face, though. It made her feel foolish. Her spouse's words 'for you, I will become a full lesbian' by some reason kept floating in her mind. Lately he kept catching herself... himself... whatever, thinking about going, ahem, all the way, in her current form. It both creeped Ranma out and thrilled for some reason. But to this day, any approaches in female form ended only in in impressive explosions: Akane's feelings for him, which were still there, reacted violently with her allergic homophobia.

Akane returned wearing her swimsuit. She began vigorously rinsing backpacks she emptied of their content. Ranma tried to argue against playing 'overtly-safe' but Akane made her take her boxers off and rinse these along with the kung-fu slippers. The she undid the redhead's pigtail and washed her hair with such energy that the other girl felt sparks flying from her eyes.

They returned to the shore and put their supplies back into the backpack, tying their wrung out clothes on top, to dry in the sun. Ranma's hair was put up into a pigtail, to avoid losing time. Akane, on her own insistence, tied the end of the slightly wavy tail with a ribbon, making a small bow.

"Let's go." The redhead slung the damp backpack onto her shoulders and started walking towards the strait. Wearing only her backpack and showing proudly to the world that she was a natural redhead.

Akane let out a loud, expressive cough.

"What? There's no one here." Ranma made innocent eyes gesturing around the horizon.

"Well, assume the portal leads us to a crowded place, you _baka_?" Akane inquired snarkily as she crossed her arms. "Ami was giving some vague hints at that when she told me about Usagi's position. How would you look then? Especially if something happens at the pyramid giving you no time to dress?"

Ranma turned beet red and hastily grabbed for her backpack, to pull her swimsuit out.

They started fording the strait. It was only a couple hundred meters wide. Somewhere around halfway water reached their chest making them take their backpacks off and carry these overhead. Ranma would reach the shore faster by swimming, but the speed of a caravan always equals the speed of its slowest camel. Despite all her efforts and training Akane still possessed the buoyancy of a hammer.

"Let's inflate the air-bed," Ranma said when water reached her necks. Akane was wobbly on her feet, biting her lip as her fear was rising. The current was pushing them, slowly but irresistibly, towards the faraway reef where waves of open ocean were crashing thunderously.

"Wait, I have an idea," Akane said handing Ranma her backpack. "Would you cover for me?"

"Of course." Ranma frowned in confusion seeing her spouse turn back towards the shore. "What are you planning?"

"Well, you aren't only one entitled to creating insane techniques, aren't you?" Akane replied not explaining anything.

While Akane was trudging towards the shore Ranma quickly swam across the deep place. Leaping to the beach she put backpacks down on the grass under palm trees. Then she returned to the surf, utterly puzzled.

"Ready?" Akane shouted across two hundred meters separating them.

"Yeah!"

Akane aimed, the leaped onto a nearby palm tree. It recoiled launching her back at the sand of the beach. The raven-haired girl in green one-piece started running so fast that her legs blurred, even to Ranma's trained eye. Leaving a trail of kicked up sand she dashed towards water. She ran into the sea. And continued running in a foamy swash leaving a wake like a hydrofoil boat.

Ranma boggled. Akane's rapid approaching was accompanied by a battle cry growing louder. She was sinking no deeper than knee level. Now she was halfway through the strait. Now two thirds. She started losing her balance. She stumbled on an especially large wave, her battle cry turning into a shriek of terror. Windmilling her arms and legs Akane flopped flat on her belly, rebounded a couple times off the water and finally came to a stop after plowing the beach with her nose.

"Cool!" the redhead approved sincerely as she helped her heaving wife up. "But still needs a lot of work to master." Akane just nodded, unable yet to speak.

They ran forward. Kilometers were flying by, the gaps between islands were being crossed in the same way. Sometimes Akane was able to run successfully across a strait, her record being half a kilometer — after which she had to lie down for a few minutes. Sometimes she was stumbling which lead to her starting to drown. One time Ranma had to save her from a strait fifty meters wide and barely waist-deep. But if Akane started drowning even the bottom under her feet couldn't dissuade her.

But here it was, the last island. There was only the crisp blue stretch of lagoon ahead, with a foamy line of the reef to the left and a dark-blue pointy triangle of the pyramid still far away.

Straining, Ranma inflated the air-bed by blowing, her puffed cheeks reddening from the strain. Obviously, she haven't deemed taking a pump necessary. The air-bed proved to be an airy thing of transparent plastic from one side and deep blue from the other. Akane took her position on it, grabbing the backpacks so tightly her knuckles went white. Soon she turned from an active participant of the jorney into an eyes-shut-tightly passively tugged object. These escapades cost her, Ranma thought as she pushed the air-bed in front of her. Challenging her greatest fear time and again, especially after her first fall, it's like I'd trained using cats!

She shuddered.

For Ranma who was able to swim across the entire Sea of Japan the remaining kilometers were a joke. There were no even sharks nor barracudas. Here was the pyramid, at last. Resting on the bottom, it was flooded. Depth here was almost equal to the arch height and Ranma had to push the air-bed under the edge. The backpacks got dipped a bit, Akane felt her back submerging, accompanied with the harrowing squeaks of the air-bed rubbing against the arch edges. Panicking, she reared up and barely avoided smashing her nose against the ki-defying surface.

Ranma thought they'd have big problems if water stood just a few centimeters higher. They were lucky, this looked at a lowest point of the ebb.

Inside the pyramid there was a familiar hall: a half-spherical faceted ceiling, a perfect mirror for the floor — flooded, lit by scattered light coming through a thick layer of water it made for an amazing sight. However, only Ranma was able to admire the beauty of it. Akane was at the limit of her willpower, her fear rising, feeding on itself. The short-haired girl did not want to be an useless load anymore. There was water all around her, yawning predatorily, waiting, ready to swallow her. She felt nauseated, so strong was her fear. Akane hastily tapped in a command to open the portal, not only foregoing to check the coordinates but not even giving herself time to think about consequences.

The familiar mechanical voice rang under the multifaceted dome voicing a warning: "Attention! Safety condition 18 detected! Preemptive blocking will be employed! Five seconds to cancel!" Akane didn't cancel anything, so five seconds later they were submerged in complete darkness as the only entrance closed cutting them off fro the outside world. The mechanical voice continued its monologue in darkness reciting safety conditions this and that, urging to take measures according articles twelve and one hundred thirty five, droning and droning on.

"Don't you, screw something up," Ranma's voice reached Akane from somewhere nearby. Akane had opened her eyes a while ago, but there was little use. There was nothing to look at beside the medallion screen displaying countdown.

"Don't worry, I know what I am doing," Akane replied irritably, beginning to worry herself.

"Says you," Ranma echoed without enthusiasm.

And the countdown reached zero. And the hall was flooded with light, accompanied with a victorious roar of a thousand cubic meters of water rushing through the wide opening of the portal. With said water containing summarily two girls, one air-bed and two backpacks.

Ranma would've held against the current on her own. But as the portal opened in an arch close to them, the resulting whirpool immediately started sucking the air-bed in, rotating it rapidly. Akane screamed in terror, started thrashing and tumbled off of it. She was sucked in instantly. Ranma dove after her. They were already outside, in the raging water jet, when she caught up with her wife and grabbed the drowning girl with both her arms trying to shield her with her body.

The girls crashed through sharp remains of broken tree branches. They splashed down into liquid dirt. Then a half thousand tons of water landed on top of them spinning them like twigs as it washed them away.

As they cleared up their lungs and wiped their eyes, they found themselves lodged deeply in mud: they managed to land in a small bog encircled with huge trees. A receding waterfall flowed noisily from high on in the branches of the nearest tree as the portal was disgorging the last bits of ocean water. Then the portal disappeared with a resounding click. Without water flowing, one backpack and shreds of blue plastic became visible among the broken branches.

"Our flotation means is totaled," Ranma stated as she tried to move towards the shore but only managed to sink deeper. "Could you have aimed it more precisely? So that we'd land in the exact center of this quagmire?" The bog was tiny, no more than a half hundred meters across.

There were no signs of theirs second backpack. The liquid dirt mixed with moss and roots, mixed up and diluted with a good helping of sea water wasn't holding them at all. It was slowly sucking the girls into its putrescent embrace. They were already deeper than their waist and the process wasn't stopping.

"Do you see your backpack?" Ranma started pulling forcefully, rowing with her arms to overcome the resistance of the quagmire. Like a fly on fly paper.

"No!" Akane snapped angrily. "How could I?" She wasn't trilled at all to be stuck in the slimy and vile. Especially when her thrashing, no less forceful than Ranma's, only led to her sinking up to her chest. "Err, It's embarrassing to say this, but could you save me please?" Her ki-reinforced body was easily overcoming any resistance the quagmire could put, but sadly, any movement led her _down_. The fear of drowning that seemed to release her returned with vengeance plunging its icy tentacles into the core of her being.

"A moment, I'll just climb out myself!" Ranma said as she tore towards the shore with splorching and slurping sounds, time and again grabbing at huge leaves, some green strands and other plant stuff. The greenery kept tearing out but that couldn't stop her advance.

Akane froze trying not to breathe. And still she continued to submerge, millimeter by millimeter. An icy paw of fear was caressing her, making the sinking girl breathe through her teeth.

Gradually peace returned to the upheaved bog, its habitants renewing their warbling, singing and croaking. The medallion's shrill and rattly voice joined this chorus: "Alarm! Detecting a multitude of sanguivorous life forms in the air! Deterring system power is insufficient!"

One didn't need this yell to notice a gray mist of mosquitoes starting to billow over the untouched parts of the bog.

"Catch!" Ranma broke a small tree with a sharp crack so that its leafy crown landed on top of Akane of whom there was only the head visible. The panicking girl clutched at the branches with a death grip. The redhead plucked her out like a carrot.

"Thank you," Akane breathed out trying to catch her breath. She lost it more to fear than to exertion. "You know, I don't want to stay here in only my swimsuit," she added as she smacked rapidly at several mosquitoes who already managed to molest her. And that was before the main cloud reached them yet.

"Don't worry, I'll just grab my backpack and we're outta here!" Ranma rapidly climbed the tree. "Oh! Look, there it is, your backpack!" She pointed at somewhere in the bog.

Akane saw her backpack now, barely sticking out of the mud. Not wasting time, she broke a thicker tree with a loud kiai. It fell not exactly as she planned but she never the less ran along the trunk hurrying to fish her backpack out while it wasn't sucked in yet. She climbed to thin branches, these bent under her weight making her sink up to her knees. Hesitating for a moment she laid down into the muck with an outcry of disgust. She started crawling towards the backpack while holding onto a branch with her feet and quickly sinking deeper. Grabbing the backpack she started wriggling out of the sticky goo pulling herself in with her legs and barely avoiding dipping her face in.

"Do you need a hand?" Ranma asked worriedly.

"I'll manage by myself!" Akane waved her concerns aside as she grabbed a branch with her hand. She was again up to her neck in the quagmire but now, having a purchase, it wasn't that scary. She quickly pulled out tearing herself out of the sticky muck with a mighty jerk. She was already standing up on the tree trunk when she felt something touching her thigh. Akane almost fell back down in her panicked grab for it. She felt something thick and wriggling in her grip and tore it away from her leg.

"Aargh, it's disgusting!" she howled when she saw her catch.

"What? What is it?" Ranma ran up to her wife. The tree started sinking under their combined weight, their feet disappearing in the dirty water. "Whoa! Is that a _leech_?"

The balack, wriggling slug-alike body was half a meter long, thick as Akane's biceps. It displayed impressive incisors, almost like that of beaver. Akane realized that this _thing_·almost got her femoral artery. She felt ill. (note 1) Dismayed, she dashed towards the shore almost jostling Ranma off the log.

"Alarm! Biologic threat! Aggressive environment!" the medallion yelled belatedly. "Detecting approach of eighty three analogous life forms!"

Ranma glanced at her feet. She was knee deep in the goo as the log continued sinking. A blink of an eye later she was on the shore. "By the way, I'm still interested to find where we are," she reminded not-too-subtly about someone's blunder. "Is this even the right world?" She punted a few leeches back into the bog as they crawled out. Then she started slapping at incoming mosquitoes. "Hurry up. If we have to go back, better to do it while they haven't arrived en masse."

"A moment!" Akane grabbed for the medallion but realized she was still holding the leech. Willing her locked up fingers open with a supreme effort she threw the thing into the bog, then finally opened the mud-covered medallion. "No, it's the right world. I just... missed a bit. It's six kilometers that way." She pointed with her arm.

"All right, let's go!" The redhead grabbed her backpack. Then she blurted out, tempting fate: "So far no other beast had crawled in on us!"

Of course her asking for it bore fruit.

"Danger!" the medallion howled "Detecting a large carnivorous life form!" This was a cue for an immense T. rex to emerge from the thicket. The girls stared wearily up at the carnivorous theropod. The carnivorous theropod stared appraisingly down at the girls as it cocked its head to the side.

"Here we go..." Ranma sighed crackling her knuckles.

The dinosaur rushed them unhurriedly, sure of his superiority. The girls exchanged glances and performed a synchronous kick to his jaw when the beast tilted down to chomp on them. He was too high to punt him properly otherwise as they wouldn't reach his scaly belly. Kicking at the legs thick as a bear would just drop him to his side at best.

The T. rex didn't fly far: he weighed around six tons, after all. Still, he landed ponderously on his back breaking several trees, his legs dangling in the air for a moment.

"Heh, he isn't as badass as they paint him," Ranma snorted derisively. "Let's go?"

"I hope we didn't kill him?" Akane asked as she lifted her dirty backpack onto her even more dirty shoulders.

"Nah, don't worry," Ranma said nonchalantly. "He'll come to till evening. Next time he'll think twice whom he intents to eat."

They had walked around the bog when an angry roar washed over their backs like a tangible wave. It sounded extremely low and menacing. The girls turned around. The tyrannosaur was already up. He stood with his head low, his tail swishing angrily left and right, held high in the air. Seeing them looking at him, he roared again, ploughing ground up with one foot, then with another one. He looked like an incarnate of vengeful malice, there were only glowing eyes missing.

"Creepy." Akane shievered.

"Screw him," Ranma muttered irritably as she leaped onto a suitable tree. "Come on, let's run. We can reach Usagi in half an hour or less. Besides, I'm itching to wash up. After that bog I feel smeared in shit."

The dirty girls clad in swimsuits barely visible under the layer of stinky grime started moving quickly leaping from tree branch to tree branch. They were followed by a receding angry roar: the T. rex went totally apeshit when he saw the insolent mammals weren't staying for a séance of retribution.

Tree-hopping ninja style requires concentration as one's attention is always on choosing a next suitable branch. This method of locomotion isn't conductive to admiring scenery. So they haven't even noticed at first that their path started curling upwards. However, after one more minute the jungle ended, replaced with a rocky mountainside covered with copses of bushes. They had to go up as their destination lied in the direction at the shining snow-covered peaks. Luckily it was much closer.

"We'd better wash up somewhere and dress, if there are people going to be there," Ranma noted. Then she added under her breath: "She's calling that 'missed a bit'... It's good ki works here." She touched a smarting spot on her side, a reminder of her slamming smack into a sharp, iron-hard broken branch when they fell out of the portal.

The land looked arid, so they used their chance when they came upon a creek streaming its icy waters through round pebbles and boulders. They tore their swimsuits off, these were starting to dry and glue to their skin. They washed themselves in the painfully cold water, then started washing their swimsuits along with their other clothing: tied on top of the backpacks it got its fair share of swamp muck.

After that it became obvious what sticky, vile things their backpacks were. They didn't want to be held up so close to their goal but putting these backpacks on would be wasting all their washing efforts. So they hurriedly emptied the backpacks and went to wash them after they hung their clothing around on the bushes. It wasn't going to dry completely, but they hoped it'll do some. There was a weak but piercing wind blowing from the peaks.

Akane's ability to sense killing intent was the only thing that allowed her to dodge. There was no sound, not a single branch popped, when she suddenly found herself rolling desperately to the side, not even comprehending yet why. Five-inch teeth snapped shut where she was a moment ago! Akane stared in bewilderment up at the tyrannosaurus looming over her. He repeated his attempt to make mince-meat of her, forcing the girl time and again to roll across round rocks in the icy water. The only sounds of battle were splashing, rocks grinding under the feet of the trampling dinosaur and the snapping of his teeth.

A second later Ranma's shout joined in as the redhead slammed outstretched leg first into the dinosaur's head. He stumbled but did not fall. Akane jumped onto her feet and bounded away. Seeing that his sneak attack failed, the tyrannosaur lowered his head and roared, directing angry glares at both girls in turn.

"How did this hulk sneak up on us?" Ranma said with mixed annoyance and admiration.

"I don't know, but now we have to defeat him somehow. We need to dress!" Akane said stating the obvious.

"We have to deal with him permanently, at that," Ranma added as she squinted nastily at the overgrown predator. "Coming out to people with this thing trailing us would be crassly irresponsible."

The dinosaur roared rushing her with persistence worth of better uses. The redhead jumped away with ease...

"Our things!" Akane shouted out in panic as she dashed to intercept. "Watch where you retreat!"

Ranma saw that the multi-ton beast was almost on top of their supplies. She hurriedly jumped aside, then moved closer opening deliberately to lure him away: "Here! Here!"

The T. rex turned around and managed to step on something as he stepped in place. Lowering his head again he roared at Ranma angrily, promising he'd tear her to itty-bitty pieces, just let him catch her!

"Aren't you like Kunou!" Ranma smirked. "Got any common relatives?"

The dinosaur tried to incinerate her with his glare - unsuccessfully - and dug the earth up with his legs like an angry bull. Supplies he haven't trampled yet flew in all directions, mixed with rocks and clumps of earth.

"Why, you!" Akane roared. "Take this, you jerk! Raitsui Dan!"

The ki blast slammed into the dinosaur's side. But it just made him stumble, throwing him back a bit. He stepped backwards, right into the bushes where their clothing was hanging. Crushing them noisily.

"Mokou Takabisha!" Ranma launched her own ki blast as she saw they were about to be left without clothing and supplies. It slammed right into the maw opened wide to let out another roar. But even that did not stop the dinosaur. Shaking his head he sat on his tail, flattening bushes and clothing alike under his weight. Akane leaped at him while he hadn't regained his senses yet, afraid he'd grind the clothing to dust.

The T. rex managed to see through her move — it was that straight right punch, telegraphed widely and visible from a kilometer away, that was her shameful undoing in her first duel against Shampoo, but who could have thought an _animal_·would be able to read it? — and bit preemptively with amazing precision. Akane was saved only by her reaction speed. Twisting in mid-air, she slammed with her parted feet into the tip of his jaws instead of crashing into the gaping maw. Rebounding awkwardly, she landed in a vulnerable position and had to roll around again dodging the snapping jaws. A couple of broken teeth didn't discourage the beast in the slightest.

"That's it," growled Ranma. "You asked for it!" The tyrannosaur had trampled the bushes where their clothing was hanging into a broken mess while he was rising up to his feet. "If you left me without my favorite shirt..." She dashed towards the insufferable predator. He managed to kick at her with his left leg without interrupting his attempts to chomp down on the rolling Akane, his tail sticking almost straight up. Ranma dodged easily, raining hard blows on his right leg. The dinosaur lost his balance and stumbled, trying simultaneously to back away and bite her to get her out from between his legs.

Freed, Akane leaped at him, aiming at the neck. But the dinosaur managed to dodge, backpedaling with sudden swiftness and almost stepping on Ranma in the process. The long-suffering bushes were crunching again, the creek shores rapidly turning into a mess of broken branches. This had no effect on the dinosaur while posing some obstacle for the girls.

It was awkward to hit the long-legged, dodging thing: while standing on the ground, they could only reach his legs bulging with stone-hard muscles and the snapping maw. Beating at the latter was dangerous. Beating at both wasn't bringing any discernible results. A few more broken teeth only made the tyrannosaur angrier.

They tried to leap so they could hit his neck and other vulnerable spots. But doing that, they were losing their advantage in agility. They had to move by predictable trajectories while he kept his agility as he was standing on the ground. The bastard could bite preemptively seeing through their moves. Ranma kept twisting away and even managed one solid hit at his eye. Akane twisted once, twice, then fumbled and barely managed to jerk her shoulder and arm out from between the closing teets.

Ranma felt cold when she noticed a reddish imprint on her beloved's shoulder. These teeth looked able to crush solid rock! Granted, the T. rex was much smaller than Orochi but he could still snap your arm off with ease.

She gestured to Akane: let's flank him. The raven-haired girl understood her instantly, used to fighting together in their endless battles against the youma.

He couldn't defend from two opposing directions, especially with one eye bruised. They started inflicting rare but powerful hits as they kept leaping at the dinosaur. He countered this by backing into the bushes, where they couldn't jump. There was only the gaping maw left sticking out. Akane tried to get close by just breaking through the mess of branches, but these proved durable enough to slow her down, thus negating her main advantage. This mistake almost became her last. She barely managed to dodge by diving into the cramped space below the lowest branches. She then had to scramble madly on all fours, zig-zagging to flee from the snapping death.

"Mokou Takabisha!" Ranma fell literally from the sky as she jumped a dozen meters up, over the bushes, slamming her ki blast into the thing's spine. He sagged from the blow, then turned towards the rustling that gave away her landing spot. He roared angrily.

"Raitsui Dan!" Akane didn't waste time. Rolling onto her back, she launched her ki blast from below. It hit the dinosaur under his tail, making him choke on his roar and fall on his muzzle.

"What does it take to bring this thing down!" Ranma exclaimed indignantly when the T. rex started getting up, pulling his legs in one by one and helping himself with his small forepaws. Letting out a short growl, he rushed at her, limping on his right leg. Ranma thought of jumping onto his back and beating him from there. Then she saw Akane gaining on him along the path he made in the bushes. She was stumbling on broken branches. She'll get caught again! Ranma decided to take a calculated risk. After all, this worked with crocodiles, so why not? Her wife had too many close calls already and could use some breathing room. "Akane, start beating him with all you got! I'll hold him up!" She jumped right into the descending maw. Her knees shot out, each one slamming into the jaw tip right inside the narrow arch formed by the front teeth. The dinosaur tried to close his jaws, and her eyes widened in sudden fright: the biting force of this thing was phenomenal, no crocodile could even compare! Ranma grunted, shuddering in desperate effort to keep this trap for shutting. The T. rex put all his might into crushing her. This was insane! How many tons of force could he bring to bear so that it was almost too much even for her? Was his prey made of steel? Refusing to become dinosaur chow, the redhead put all she had into straightening her legs into a perfect split. Finally she succeeded, forcing the jaws even wider. Now she was lodged fast, no chance of him opening wider to shake her out. As a bonus benefit, her leg and hip bones were now taking the brunt of the effort, letting her aching leg muscles rest a bit. This was... "Ack! Yeech! Why, you!" The dinosaur tried to push her out with his tongue, so now she had to fight this appendage too, using her arms to keep away from her. It was all muscle and rough like sandpaper. "Akane, don't dawdle here!"

The dinosaur was swishing his head from side to side, stumbling through the bushes blindly like a drunk. The pigtailed girl kept holding his maw wide open. The other girl kept hitting the unyielding underside uncontested while the predator tried to pick the oh-so-wrong prey out of his mouth. He bent his neck, trying to get at her with his smallish forepaw. This pose was even less stable and he couldn't even kick. Akane used this to her full advantage, punching at his neck or tail, whatever happened closer to the ground. Ranma dodged a couple of times, displaying amazing feats of flexibility. Then she abandoned the tongue and grabbed the muscled forepaw in an unbreakable hold. After which the tyrannosaur started spinning in place, occasionally kicking at Akane who was beating him up. He concentrated all his efforts on freeing his forepaw. Ranma was groaning from the strain, swearing at the tongue slobbering her up, but she didn't let the extremity go. An Anything-goes practitioner isn't some triceratops for you!

Finally, the sum of received bruises outweighed the theropod's attitude. The animal turned tail and started fleeing, accompanied with Akane's yells "Stop! Stop, you jerk! Give my Ranma back!" Consumed by worry for her spouse she gave the opponent an opening, and the dinosaur sent her flying with a deft flick of his tail. Tumbling head over heels she landed in broken bushes and stuck thrashing there without a purchase. The T. rex stomping and Ranma's swearing quickly receded disappearing in the distance.

"Ranmaaaa!" Akane tore free, at last. She rushed along the trail of broken bushes the predator left in his hasty retreat.

"I'm here!" The redhead appeared from the thicket ahead, wiping at herself with disgust. Her disheveled hair was sticking to her skin, the pigtail long ruined. "Yuck, he slobbered all over me!" She hurried to the creek to wash up.

"Wait! He got you!" Akane shouted in alarm as she noticed a bloody stripe across Ranma's side.

"Nah, it's back when we fell out of the portal," the redhead waved her concerns aside. "Fell smack into a branch. Stop fretting so much, it's just an abrasion." She flopped down into the icy water. "Brr! You'd better check if we have at least our panties left. Or would we have to go out in some kind of grass skirts?"

Akane hurried towards the place where their things were stashed. The losses turned out to be amazingly light: all the instant ramen got ground into the ground, as well as Ranma's swimsuit which was useless even as rags now. Everything else was relatively intact, if dirty and rumpled. They washed their clothing for the third time and pulled it on, wet as it was. They were suddenly very aware of the wind they weren't noticing during the fight.

"What would we eat on our way back?" Akane asked as she finished bandaging Ranma's side with an adhesive patch. Unlike her husband, she had practically no wilderness survival skills. Well, except the usual 'take more supplies from the fridge, ride a train as close to your destination as possible, go the rest of your way on foot'. Their mutual experience of surviving in Jadeite's world was of little help here: they only had to steal from the enemy fields where everything was already grown by someone else.

"Things we could hunt for, what else?" The redhead tied her shirt up. "Rabbits, whatever you have." She cast a vengeful glance in the direction the T. rex had disappeared to. "I now feel sorry I let the bastard go. Should have finished him off and used for ham."

They ran on forward: Usagi was at an arm's length!

(シーンブレイク)

May 28, 2012. Translated June 22, 2012.

**Author's notes:**

**1**  
Femoral artery passes very close to the surface on the inner side of the upper thigh, making this spot as fatally vulnerable to slashing damage as one's throat.

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— Crystal  
— Pusakuronu


	16. Unexpected meeting

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 16  
Unexpected meeting**

The closer to their goal they got, the higher into the mountains they went. The wind grew sharper, especially piercing for them in their wet clothing. It was easier for Ranma, whose silk shirt and pants dried very fast. Akane fared much worse in her camouflage pants, jacket and sweatshirt.

A pack of some small predators proved a handy warmup as they jumped the girls, suddenly ambushing them. A moment ago, it was serenely calm, and then the martial artists were desperately twisting and dodging to defend themselves from wicked claws and toothy maws coming from everywhere at once. Losing just one of their numbers, the attackers scattered, disappearing in the bushes as swiftly as they had emerged. Ranma grabbed the killed, bizarre critter and attached it to her backpack by its broken neck.

"What do you need it for?" Akane asked, examining their trophy. It turned to be some mix of a bird and a lizard. The size of a small dog, it had a long tail, a maw full of small but sharp teeth, and huge, wicked claws on its front paws that were adorned with short feathers like some mockery of wings. However, the claws on its hind legs were even bigger and nastier. The body of this snappish nuisance was covered with bright orange fur, black stripes running across the back and tail. It was like a tiger with a stylish plume of white and black feathers on the tip of its tail.

"We'll roast it for dinner," Ranma explained patronizingly. "We'll have to track back with Usagi. What do you think, how many days would it take? We can't go back through the death world, there's that radioactive hashushaitu sitting right next to the entrance." She started tying her hair into a pigtail as she walked; the ponytail proved to be impractical with her current hair length, it kept getting in the way, and during the skirmish it had untied, ending up with her hair all mussy and sticking to her face.

The slopes they were walking on were turning more and more into a sparse grassland. A few times, they met some sort of herbivorous dinosaurs, approximately three elephants in size. These were grazing peacefully. There was one time the girls met a huge pack of familiar tiger-striped carnivores busy flaying the bulk of such a herbivore. These restrained themselves to shrieking menacingly, especially when they saw their brethren hanging limply from the backpack. They followed the girls with wary and hostile eyes before returning to their meal. Two kilometers later, the next pack happened to be either more hungry or less prudent. The girls were delayed again, having to explain it to them that humans in general and martial artists in particular are a bad choice of food.

"How could people live here?" Ranma asked a rhetorical question as she straightened her backpack, which was now sporting a small ragged hole. "Do they sit cooped up in some underground bunkers or what? And what manner of critter is this?" She shifted one of small carcasses with her foot. "I'd say they resemble small dinosaurs. But fur? And feathers?"

"Ask something simple, will you." Akane just increased her pace. "We have to find Usagi quickly! I don't like this carnivore preserve."

The higher into the mountains they got, the colder it was getting. Animals gradually disappeared, along with the grass. There was only wind whiffing across rocks, and rare trees, low and gnarled. Thankfully, Akane's clothing had finally dried. Even as well trained as she was, the piercing wind was discomforting.

Their path unobtrusively emerged into a wide valley squeezed between mountain branches. The familiar creek was flowing through its middle. Gradually, signs of human habitation started to appear here and there: ruined foundations of rough rocks, remains of some fences. Then a barely noticeable beaten path appeared, becoming a bit more pronounced after a couple more kilometers.

"Looks like we've found the people," Ranma stated as a wall emerged from a sharp bend in the valley. It wasn't the Great China wall, but it was blocking the valley from side to side, merging with the cliffs. The valley was some three hundred meters wide, at it's narrowest. When they walked closer, they assessed the wall height as five to six meters. Made from large, uncut boulders, it showed no sign of a gate. There was only a low drain barred with a massive rusty grate, the creek gurgling merrily between its bars. There were sharp stakes adorning the top of the wall, sticking out at random angles like the hide of an especially unkempt porcupine.

Ranma was aiming to clear the wall in one jump when she felt Akane's elbow colliding with her ribs. "What?" She didn't get it.

Akane silently pointed with her eyes to the closest of the two watchtowers towering beyond the wall. There was someone leaning out of a fur-covered hut on its top. They could even discern his jaw hanging low in stupefaction.

"So?" asked Ranma. "Oh! You want us to play harmless wallflowers not out to kick someone's ass? Pity the girlies and stuff? Yeech." She scrunched her face up like she had chewed through a whole lemon in one go. "Well, this idea has merit. Who knows what sort of people live here, it could be something like that amazon village... all right, let's try this." The redhead made an effort and generated one of her most kawaii smiles, a technique perfected with use on ice-cream sellers. Looking at this outrage, Akane almost changed her mind. Seeing her husband turning his female charms up to eleven as always made her worry for his sanity.

Meanwhile, a ladder emerged from beyond the wall. It stretched higher and higher, then began to lean over the edge... Suddenly, it jerked, tumbled and slammed onto the ground this side of the wall. In its place a bearded man emerged. Leaning over the wall, he looked down. Then he scratched the back of his head and uttered something expressive and heart-felt in an unknown language.

"Bovine feces participating in a homosexual intercourse," the medallion said suddenly in its squeaky, emotionless mechanical voice. Ranma stared in stupefaction at the mechanism hanging on Akane's neck. Then she started snorting, making a titanic effort to hold the laughter in and keep her kawaii expression up.

"Better be glad it worked at all!" Akane hissed at her in a hushed voice.

"What was that?" Ranma asked in a whisper. "I mean, the translation thing." They walked up to the fallen ladder and began lifting it upright slowly, huffing and making a show of how hard it was for them.

"Ami switched it on right before we went out," Akane explained in a low voice. "But she said she didn't know how reliable it would be... There are additional conditions like visual something or other... I hope it will be translating our words as well." She started climbing up the ladder.

It turned out that the wall had no battlements nor walkways. In short it was just a fence, impressive, but not intended as a fortification. On the other side, there was an another ladder and a bearded man waiting for them below. Ranma itched to just jump down, the height was laughable. When they finished climbing down he climbed up without saying a word and started pulling the outer ladder in, huffing and swearing. _Probably_·swearing: the medallion was silent. Akane got nervous. Ranma reacted with the serenity of a well tended Buddha statue: after all, he and pops had traversed China without knowing the language, no big deal.

They took a look around. There were sparce fields stretching away from this side of the wall. Someone was digging in the dirt at the far edge of these. There was nothing else of note. A small distance off, there was a sort of path emerging consisting of a stripe of trampled earth, slightly more rocky than that of the fields, that led beyond a bend in the valley.

While the man was huffing and puffing as he lowered the second ladder to stand next to the first one, a guy of some fourteen years wandered from the second tower. He had the look of a snooty youngster with an extremely low self-esteem. Both were dressed in baggy pants and jackets of rough wool, with leather boots on their feet.

"Hello," Akane said with a laboured, friendly smile as she turned to the bearded man. Laboured because she happened to be standing downwind of him.

Nothing happened for several seconds, making her sweat nervously. Then, the medallion uttered something in the same gratingly squeaky voice. The phrase consisted of as many as five words, which didn't instill faith in the abilities of the hellish contraption.

The man scratched the back of his head in confusion. Then he asked her something. The language wasn't even close to anything the girls were familiar with. Beside their native tongue, they had only had English stuffed into their head in school. Other than that, they could recognize — but not understand — also French, and in Ranma's case Korean and Chinese.

"You are wise women, yes?" the medallion reacted finally. The pause was shorter this time. "From which direction/location have you walked/fell/emerged?"

While Akane was still opening her mouth, unsure how to respond, Ranma blurted out: "We got lost!" with an over-the-top sugary expression on her face, including a silly smile, in a voice that all but screamed "Me dumb blond, me no understand complex things." The youngster was _staring_·at her, jittery but stubbornly. That's why she hurried to finish this talk as soon as possible. She could almost physically feel him _pawing_·her body with his eyes.

The medallion echoed with a short phrase as Akane slammed her elbow unto Ranma's ribs while keeping an innocent look.

The man replied in a skeptical tone as he looked at the cringing Ranma's back.

"I observe that you got lost in such a way that you obtained a velociraptor," the medallion proclaimed.

They blew it! Akane thought. They did not hide the carcass of an extremely dangerous predator! Surely hunting these is considered a real heroism here.

"We are, err, searching for a missing comrade," she said, hastily trying to steer the conversation away from that topic. "A blond girl—"

"A velociraptor?" Ranma asked in disbelief as she unclasped the carcass from her backpack to look at it with a great interest. "I thought they were bigger! Well, I mean, in that movie—"

An another elbow unto her ribs shut her up.

The medallion erupted with a long phrase in local language.

The man was blinking in confusion as he listened to the translation. Then he stood there for a long time scratching the back of his head. Then he asked again uncertainly, something as long.

"You are searching for a blond-furred female, the mate of this velociraptor, who is bigger than moving pictures, yes?" the medallion translated dispassionately. "Either I look curved or this your medium is rotten."

Akane wanted to strangle Ranma right then and there. Or smash the medallion to pieces. Or both, pretty please.

"No, we are searching for a girl," she corrected hastily all the while trying to incinerate Ranma with her glare.

The medallion was silent.

Akane turned to the man looking at him helplessly. The man said something.

"I preferably will/do bring/lead you to the head," the medallion translated.

"That's good," Ranma agreed as she was on the edge: the youngster continued to paw her with his eyes in all the inappropriate places, making the redhead's fists itch. Her kawaii expression was becoming more and more strained and unnatural. As the man started to turn around, he saw where his partner was staring. He barked something so sharply that the youngster jumped a half-meter up then scrambled towards his tower. Ranma let out a sigh of relief.

Akane elbowed Ranma a couple more times in the ribs, not wanting him to blurt something out again. Then, she tried carefully to pry the man for information on who these people were and what could be expected of them. She managed to learn two things: firstly, the place was called "valley of the wind". Secondly, the medallion had a really nasty habit of translating or not depending if the gadget felt like it. Seeing that, the man said flatly "ask the head" and refused to talk any more.

A town, or a castle, emerged from beyond a bend in the valley. It stood on a small hill, surrounded by a wall looking identical to the one closing the valley off. There were impressive, ancient looking stone towers growing out of the wall, narrowing towards their tops. These were intermixed with frail-looking watchtowers topped with large platforms. Of the town itself, there was only a heaping of tiled rooftops bulging up in the center visible. Higher up the valley, dots of grazing cattle could be seen on the scarce grasslands of the mountain slopes. Farther than that, shining white peaks reached up, dominating the perspective.

They walked to the gate, which consisted of an archway in the wall, its left side touching one of the stone towers. There was a thin-legged watchtower on the other side of the gate.

Someone from the watchtower called their guide. The girls tensed.

He waved the asker away nonchalantly as he said something brief. The medallion translated "Transporting stray wise woman apprentices to the head". No further questions were asked, there were not even curious faces. They went inside as if that was the way.

Ranma glanced back curious to how the gate looks from inside. She pushed Akane whispering "The wall is against beasts, not men."

The short-haired girl glanced back. True to her husband's word, the wall was, in fact, a fence, its top edge bristling with sharp poles. There was no sign of battlements or walkways along its inner side. The gate turned out to be a row of thick logs, their bottom ends sharpened - like an upturned, hanging palisade, framed by two massive stone abutments. It should be a pain to open, but even a child could manage to close it: drop the wooden part and presto.

Just as they thought, the town from the inside was a sprawl of one- and two-storied buildings separated by narrow, winding streets. It was even relatively clean here, if one turned a blind eye to some overabundance of manure. Walking by some houses, Ranma determined by the scent alone that these were barns. Or did they combine it here, with a barn on the first floor and living quarters on the second?

On the way to their goal known only to the man leading them, their group eventually gathered a crowd of curious children from those who were wandering the streets. Everyone older was, presumably, busy somewhere out of sight. The munchkins kept trying to pull at the dead velociraptor's tail as its carcass was obviously much more interesting than the boring outlander girls. A couple of the most brazen ones already possessed some feathers from the fan at the tip of the tail. Brushing the clamoring children aside, the bearded man led the girls to a particular house. There was a T. rex skull mounted above the door, serving as a marquee.

The man opened the door, gesturing for them to follow him. It wouldn't be so bad inside, with the clean dirt floor, whitewashed walls, and enough light from a huge fireplace and a couple kerosene lamps hanging from the ceiling... But the spirits! The booze breath in the stuffy air was so dense that Akane's eyes bugged out, and she stopped breathing unsure how anyone could breathe _this_. She surely wasn't brave enough.

The center of the spacious room was occupied by a huge, massive table and two rows of burly, smashed drunk men sitting on huge, massive benches to both sides of it. But they were all dwarfed by the person seated at the head of this table. His bald-shaved head glistened a good foot above theirs. His immense muscles were bulging, not covered by his sleeveless fur jacket. With his long, hanging moustache, he was a sight to behold. He was currently emptying a huge tankard that looked tiny in his meaty fist.

The man who brought the outlanders here immediately shrunk two sizes and reported something in a respectful voice. The obnoxious medallion didn't deign to translate.

"That's probably the head he was talking about," Ranma shared her guess in a conspiratorial whisper.

Akane nodded silently, still unsure if it was possible to breathe here.

"Bakhyt!" the head barked at their guide as he thunderously slammed his tankard onto the table. After a three second pause the medallion translated this as "dismissed."

Ranma turned around, but the bearded man wasn't there. He disappeared so silently as if he knew some stealth technique.

The head, meanwhile, stared at the girls with heavy, murky eyes, making Akane ill at ease. The other men present followed his example, but they did it much less impressively.

If Pops was in his place, Ranma thought, assessing him with her trained eye, he'd have half a bottle of sake to go till shutdown. But with this hulk, who knows.

There was a massive, bucket-sized bottle towering in the center of the table, still half-full of something milky.

The head blinked with a massive effort, some thought struggling to surface reflected on his face. Finally, he bellowed: "LAEEDATH!". Ground shook and the flame in the kerosene lamps fluttered.

An annoyed old woman's voice reached from beyond a fur curtain that served as an internal door.

"LAEEDATH!" the boss roared again, slurring. He followed up with a short, unintelligible tirade. Then he slammed his massive tankard against the table signaling to continue with the banquet that had been interrupted so inopportunely. The other men immediately followed his example, but they did it much less impressively.

"There are two error, articulation is not clear enough to see you," the medallion translated.

The aforementioned Laeedath emerged from behind the curtain. She turned out to be a stout granny dressed in a simple woolen dress and a colorful shawl, gray hair showing from under it.

Ranma's and Akane's eyes were immediately drawn to a medallion on her neck. It looked an exact copy of theirs.

The granny stood looking them over for a few seconds, in some confusion as Ranma felt. Then she gestured the girls to follow her.

There was a storeroom beyond the fur curtain, sturdy shelves sagging under the load of gammons and humongous bottles of moonshine.

"I thought Ami made it?" Ranma whispered.

"It's standard-issue," Akane whispered in return. "Be quiet."

Another fur curtain, and they found themselves in a room where walls were lined with massive chests sealed with paper seals, with lots of dusty scrolls piled on top. There was a simple wooden table in the center, not as massive as the one where the head with his retinue were getting plastered, but still big. There were long benches to the both sides of it and a chair at its head.

Akane noisily inhaled the air smelling of dust and mold, enjoying every bit of it. An ambrosia!

Gesturing the guests to take a bench, Laeedath sighed as she sat on the chair.

Ranma sat down, hiding her suspicion with a titanic effort of will. So the granny is an Ahs-user then? Then she could be more dangerous than Cologne! The redhead was angry at herself that she didn't ask Akane to tell her everything about the medallion.

"Nice to meet you . We—" Akane began but the granny stopped her with a gesture, holding her palm up. She opened her medallion typing something quickly. It beeped. Then Akane's medallion beeped. Worried, Akane opened it but she calmed down seeing "Connection established. Exchanging language information." written on the screen. She turned it to show it to Ranma who was casting worried side glances at their sole Ariadne's thread in this hostile universe.

The medallions beeped synchronously. The granny started talking and her medallion began translating with barely a second of delay: "Welcome to the valley of the wind office. I am Laeedath, the wise woman of this tribe."

"Nice to meet you." Akane bowed. "I'm Tendou Akane, and this," she glanced at the redhead, "Is Saotome Ranma. We're here to save a friend."

The phrase spoken by her medallion felt too short.

"It's obvious you haven't mastered using your interactor, Miss Skywalker," Laeedath noted archly. She was making pauses to let her medallion finish. "Forgetting even to look at your conversation partner."

"That's it!" Ranma blurted out, unable to hold her sudden realization in. "Just as I thought! Look, Akane, it translates someone if you are looking at them!"

Akane's medallion erupted with a long phrase.

"An interactor with double ownership?" Laeedath lifted an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware this is possible. I suspect you'd better talk in turns then, with large pauses in between."

"We have had that experience," Akane admitted sheepishly. "We tried to say we're searching for a girl, but it turned out as a female velociraptor. A total mess."

"So you are searching for a girl," Laeedath stated with some cold in her voice.

"She's a blond who should have appeared here approximately half a day ago," Akane explained in a nervous haste. "She's our comrade, got lost in a... catastrophic space-time rupture."

Ranma wanted to interrupt so strongly she had to bite her tongue. If Laeedath is an Ahs user and that unknown enemy is also an Ahs user, could it happen that the granny is in his vassalage? What if she turns them over?

But the granny, against Ranma's expectations, thawed. "There is such a girl," she said with a barely noticeable smile.

"Is she all right? Unhurt?" Akane exclaimed barely able to wait the end of the translation.

"Where's she?" injected Ranma. "Is she all right, arms and legs still attached?"

Akane's medallion erupted with a long phrase.

"What a mess." Laeedath shook her head. "You girls definitely have to abstain from talking at the same time." She stood up with a groan. "Let's go, I'll lead you to your blond. And yes, she is unhurt."

They went outside through the door of the granny's office on the opposite side from the entrance to the head's half. Some of the children were miling here, so their exit wasn't unnoticed, and soon the entire crowd was again following them down the narrow, winding streets, clamoring and pulling the tail. But the girls were barely aware of this: finally, their goal was close, and they would meet their princess any moment now!

"Here we are," Laeedath said as she stopped before the door of some house turning to the girls. Opening the door she shouted something inside. Her medallion was silent. As well as Akane's because the short haired girls was looking at the open door.

A woman's voice replied something from inside, then muffled "I'm coming, I'm coming" in Japanese could be heard. Ranma and Akane stood practically transfixed... A familiar blond came out...

"Usa... Haruka...?" Akane choked on the prepared greeting. "-san...? But how...? I mean, why?" She looked so flabbergasted that the joyous expression on Haruka's face slowly turned to puzzled.

"Like, glad you're alive, then, like, where's Usagi?" Ranma added no less eloquently as she fought to reel her jaw in.

"Guys?" the racer smiled unsurely. "You devils, you can't help do the impossible!" Her expression quickly turned grim. "Wait. If you were searching for Usagi..."

"Then where is she?" Akane asked a rhetorical question. Her voice was so dismayed, her face so lost, that it would have been funny if it wasn't so sad. Their only lead led them... no, not nowhere. But concerning Usagi, they, it turned out, still had no clue where she was and how she was doing.

(シーンブレイク)

May 28, 2012. Translated July 23, 2012

**Thanks for C&C to:**  
— Pusakuronu, who had single-handedly slain 126 (one hundred and twenty six) blunders of mine, 46 of them being missing commas.  
— Crystal


	17. Crossway

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 17  
Crossway**

_Shall you go left, you'll lose your steed. Shall you go right, you'll lose your life. Shall you go straight, you will live, but will lose yourself._

_A runic stone on crossroads a questing knight comes to, Russian folk tales._

"Wait. If you were searching for Usagi..." The tall, boyish-looking girl with short sandy-blond hair turned from Akane to Ranma. "What happened to her?"

"We don't know," Ranma replied. "Now we know that we know nothing. We have been thinking she was misplaced somewhere like the others, but..." Then she added with frustration: "And here we were sure we were coming to rescue her!"

"We need to return as soon as possible, to warn Ami!" Akane said. "I'm sure she'd invent some new way to find her when she learns that this one failed."

"Let's go inside," suggested Laeedath. This was translated by her medallion. Then she addressed someone in the house. As Akane was staring at Haruka, the meaning of these words remained unknown.

A young woman some twenty years old emerged on the threshold. She was dressed in a dark green woolen dress, her shoulder-length chestnut hair hanging loosely. She asked something, addressing Laeedath. "Are those Springday's friends?" Akane's medallion translated.

"Yes, that's them," Haruka replied turning to Laeedath. The latter's medallion translated this. The granny nodded and went inside. The girl in green dress gestured them to come in.

Ranma slightly slapped away a grabby hand of some kid aimed to pluck the last feather out of the tail.

"Springday?" Akane asked in confusion as she walked inside.

"Oh, you don't know it yet?" Haruka turned to her as they walked. "This hellish contraption, for some impish reason translates my name to English. Doing it completely wrong, at that. But trying to explain it to them is futile, they don't know English so 'Springday Skyking' sounds as meaningless to them as 'Ten'o Haruka'.

"Err." Akane remembered Laeedath calling her 'Miss Skywalker'. Could one really trust this translation? She turned to the girl in green, noticing only now that Haruka was wearing an identical woolen dress.

"I'm Tendou Akane, nice to meet you," she offered as she resisted her ingrained reflex to bow, in the last possible moment, as she remembered that she had to look at those she was talking to. A very awkward requirement.

"Ahstat Laeedath," the girl held out a hand for a handshake. Akane reacted with a small delay, proceeding to shake the hand hastily. Then she turned to look at Ranma. Why wasn't she introducing herself? Ranma gestured: 'I'm silent like fish'. Oh. Of course. Akane felt like facepalming. "And this is Saotome Ranma." She pointed at the redhead while keeping eye contact with Ahstat. Definitely, an awkward requirement!

Laeedath — the _elder_·Laeedath as they knew now it was a surname, not a name — threw a fur curtain open, gesturing to follow her. The travelers found themselves in a narrow room, its walls lined with wide chests serving also as benches. The granny and the younger Ahstat sat on one side while seating the Japanese girls on the other, so that the groups faced each other. Ranma flopped her backpack onto the bench beside her. Haruka cast a curious side glance at the velociraptor carcass but said nothing.

"I apologize for the lack of proper welcoming," the elder began. "But I suppose, your journey is far from over and time is always precious." She made a pause to let her medallion finish, all the while keeping her eyes on Haruka. "If I understood it right from what Miss Springday had told me, you have been battling an Ahs-Lord. Dare I hope you managed to win?"

"We..." Akane fell silent searching for the right words.

"Allow me." Ranma glanced at her wife, receiving a nod of agreement. She continued: "You can't call that a victory. Space-time shattered, scattering us all around. Luckily, everyone survived and we managed to get all of them back. Except Usagi. The enemy... I could only assume he was also thrown somewhere far away. Because he didn't show again. Well, either that, or he found something more interesting to do.

"Something more interesting to do?" Haruka turned to her leaning forward to look at her around Akane who sat in the middle. "So he wasn't attacking seriously? As you are wording it, one could think it was just a game for him." She hesitated for a moment, then continued a bit sheepishly: "Well, he dit knocked me out with one strike, but then again, rushing him was an extremely stupid thing to do... Nothing to be proud for.

"With the same strike," Ranma replied grimly, "he also smashed a mountain range. While we couldn't even scratch him. Not me, nor Saturn. He was just annulling any magic. Ki too."

"A mountain range?" Haruka asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, just like that, off-hand. After that we fought him, to no avail. It was worse than with that demon. So Usagi decided to use... You know what. Then everything went kaboom, knocking us all out. When we came to, there were only three of us. Me, Akane 'n Ami, hell knows where, with pterodactyls flying around. It was Ami who saved us. She had found the other girls and she had found the way back to Earth. Usagi was the only mistake, we have been thinking this would be our last trip to get everyone accounted for.

"Your last?" Haruka asked, surprised. "What about me?"

"Everyone thought you had died," Ranma explained with blunt directness, to Akane's horror. "Well, I tried to change their mind, told them that until they saw the body with their own... gack!"

"We are so glad that you are alive and well!" Akane injected hastily as she extracted her elbow from the doubled up Ranma's side.

"Thought I had died?" Haruka repeated with worry in her voice. "Then Michiru and Hotaru... Guys, please don't take this as ingratitude, but I have to return to them as soon as possible! How soon could we go?"

"I am very sorry," Akane said quickly, all the while glaring at Ranma. "But the way back could take days. But don't worry for them, they are all right! You are the last one who—"

"Save for Usagi," Ranma reminded her.

"Save for Usagi," Akane agreed, losing all her optimism.

A long, heavy silence ensued.

The elder Laeedath was looking at the travelers, clearly weighing something in her mind. Finally she spoke, there was some some unrecognizable, mixed emotion permeating her voice: "Scarlet, Anarchy, girls, I have a proposition for you." She made a long pause. Her medallion finished translating, but still she remained silent.

"What sort of proposition?" Akane asked with wary hope.

"And what would we have to do in return?" Ranma added when Akane's medallion finished. She simply twisted away from the Megaton Elbow Jab as she foresaw one coming.

"Nothing too hard," the granny replied ignoring their antics. "Just find, if possible, the fate of my daughter. And, if there would be anything left to, bury it with dignity—"

"Grandmother!" Ahstat exclaimed in outrage. "Are you seriously trying to offer them error, sea-green legend, error, that killed Mom? It's just an error, articulation is not clear enough!"

Akane felt utterly weirded out until she realized that her medallion failed to convey the young woman's increasingly heated tirade. When Ahstat started screaming it fell completely silent.

The elder waited patiently for Ahstat to run out of steam. Then she started counting up: "First, they have already clashed with Ahs Lords, making them enemies of one. It won't get any worse if they try. Second, their friend was teleported who knows where. You know how hard it is to find someone even knowing the world ID. Third, they can fend for themselves. Take, for example, that velociraptor. How did you obtain it?"

"A pack jumped us," Akane explained. "We had to fight back. Well, we killed one by accident."

"By accident. Tell me, my dear, what you fought back with? I don't see any weapons on you."

"Well, with our arms," Akane didn't get it. "With our legs..."

Ahstat boggled.

"Told you so," the old woman said in a lecturing tone.

"That's right," Haruka added, "They are that awesome. They'd beat a tyrannosaur with their bare hands, not just some velociraptors!"

"Don't remind me," Ranma grumbled. "I've never met a critter as pestilent before."

"Are you serious?" Haruka asked in bewilderment. "I was just joking!"

"We had to be serious, it was sticking to us us like a burr. Trampled our entire food supply to dust before we chased him off! So we have to improvise now." She lifted the velociraptor carcass by the tail.

Everyone was distracted by the creaking of Ahstat's jaw dropping low. The young woman sat there, her mouth opened and her eyes bugged out. Then she came to her senses, reeling her jaw in sheepishly. She asked, dumbfounded: "How could it be possible?"

"Training," Ranma replied smugly.

"About your proposition, granny?" Akane returned the conversation back to the track.

The old woman sat silent for a while, collecting her thoughts — or, maybe, reminiscing. When she finally spoke, her voice was dull, devoid of that vitality that made her look younger. "Twenty years ago... All interactors — _all_·interactors in all worlds, if the traveling merchants could be believed — received a message. It was short but it made a lot of waves... and trouble." She closed her eyes, remembering, then quoted: "Due to increasing inflow of requests for audience, often concerning insignificant matters not worthy of my attention, which led to the waiting list growing to the size that makes the waiting impractically long, as well due to superfluous number of messages addressing me, I decree: Firstly, all calls and messages directed at me are blocked for users of all levels. The exceptions to this rule are set by me personally. The list of these exceptions has access level zero. Secondly, any user of any level could summon me if they collect the tokens that I had randomly distributed across the worlds. For details see the article 'emergency summoning tokens'. Thirdly, all safe information about me is contained in the article 'Ahs-Asch'. It is strongly recommended to avoid trying to learn more, lest you be spontaneously erased, as a significant share of information concerning me has access level zero. From: Ahs-Asch, level zero."

Laeedath fell silent, her medallion continuing translating for a while.

"Wait!" Haruka exclaimed, barely having patience to wait for it to finish. "You told me the highest level Ahs-lords could have is one!"

The old woman kept her silence, her granddaughter replying instead. Akane's medallion translated: "That's nothing more than a legend! A trap made by someone of the high-level ones to cull the most indocile test subjects! If mom hadn't believed it she'd be still alive!"

"Wait," Ranma injected. "A spontaneous erasing of those who learns too much? Does that mean your memory would be erased? What is level zero?"

"None the less," the old Laeedath said, "The article titled 'Ahs-Asch' exists. And requires level zero to edit it." She displayed the tiny screen of her medallion. "I know, granddaughter, I know. No one of us had ever met anyone who'd know an Ahs-Lord level two or higher, even third-hand. We don't know if this article is true or if the Lords of levels two and one are able to fool the interactor belonging to a wise woman of a feeble sixth level. We don't even know if level one exists or there's no one higher than two. But still..."

"Ahs-Asch," Akane read from her medallion, "is the one and only level zero user, who cares for all dvellers of Ahs with untiring attention, under whose wise and skillful leadership nations and planets march toward the better, brighter future in the name of Greater Good and Justice?" She lifted her eyes from the screen, her voice full of doubt. "Sounds like a propaganda."

"But the style reminds of what granny had quoted for us," Ranma noted. "Everything's one big mess without breaks. Unless that's just a glitch of translation."

"No," the elder Laeedath affirmed. "It isn't. In the Ahs language it looks the same, an unordered heap. Come on, read further."

"Right..." Akane stared at the screen. "Toward the better, brighter future in the name of greater good and justice. Quote limit does not exist. Geas do not exist." She lifted her gaze, full of incomprehension. "What does this mean?"

"Every Ahs-Lord," Ahstat explained repeating it like a text learned by rote, "has a limit to their abilities, however powerful they are. Every Ahs-Lord has geas. If they break these, it leads to their quota being cut down, on even them being demoted a level."

"While the zeroth one," her grandmother continued in her stead, "Seems to be devoid of both. Simply speaking, this article says: 'I'm omnipotent'. This is more like a God than a Lord. Infinite energy, infinite abilities, and none of the Lords could say against him, as they all are below him in level."

"In short, too god to be true," Ahstat finished acidly. "But very fitting for a fairy tale for overly trusting people."

"We shouldn't discard that possibility either," the elder agreed. "Anyway, my daughter... She had found a way to find the coordinates of a closest token. She wanted to summon this Ahs-Asch and ask him a couple of questions. Just a couple of questions. To learn the truth, to lift our eternal existential curse—"

"But she found only death," Ahstat interrupted her in an uncompromising voice. This was translated by Akane's medallion, not the old woman's. Three voices overlapped making the Tendou heir feel like her head was going to explode.

"Don't interrupt me," the grandmother chided the granddaughter. "She had found the token and was returning with it when death caught up with her."

"What happened?" Ranma asked quietly, politely but insistently.

"That's what you have to find out," the elder Laeedath said. "If you agree, of course. I've received this message from her: 'I did it! Kisses. Returning soon'. It came from inside our world. Four hours later I've received: 'Your level seven proxy user's life activity ceased. Enter the reset code into the proxy's interactor. Coordinates such and such'. And that was it."

"So she was killed because of the token?" Ranma inquired.

"Or she was killed by the environment," the elder replied. "This planet is largely hostile toward humans but the zone around the transport node is known for its especially dire fauna. It's much worse than anything you could encounter in the jungle at the base of our mountains. And the coordinates point inside that zone. That place is just a couple kilometers away from the node, so it won't be easy to get there. And very dangerous. But there's a hope for you: if all of that wasn't a trap, the token should be still here."

"Twenty years later?" Ranma had hard time believing.

"Read the article 'emergency summoning tokens'. One of its points states: Each time Ahs-Asch is summoned, the tokens are scattered randomly across different worlds, while all users receive a notification... Well, there was not a single notification since then. Which means that either this scheme is a trap, or—"

"Or someone took the token to themselves," Ahstat injected, straining Akane's brain again as the young woman and both medallions were talking simultaneously. "Do recall that owning a token gives some mysterious 'bonuses' making search for the rest of them easier."

"Stop interrupting me!" snapped the old woman. "Don't you see Miss Scarlet is cross-eyed already!" Then she continued in an even voice: "And try to recall that token could stay in one hands no more than forty days, after which it will be teleported to a random point of a random world. Hence, either it's still there, or it had been carried away long ago, out of our reach."

"So there's a chance we could collect these tokens?" Ranma asked. "And summon that omnipotent zeroth one? What help would he be to us?"

"Yes, there's a chance," the granny said, becoming kind and caring again. "Concerning his use to you... If we extrapolate the abilities of Ahs Lords, he'd be also omniscient. It would be easy for him to find what happened to your friend and where she is."

"All right!" Ranma agreed instantly. "But we can't promise we will go for that token. If Ami finds a shorter way..."

"I understand." The old woman sighed. "But I still hope. Maybe there would be no better chance for me. It's too dangerous there. Don't you dare dying on me, is that clear?"

"Don't worry," Ranma smirked arrogantly. "No some beasts could best me 'n Akane. We've fought things much more dangerous."

"I'll go bring the clothing," Ahstat said as she jumped to her feet. Her voice wavered under the onslaught of contradicting emotions. "It should have dried by now." She departed the room hastily.

"Pity I couldn't keep this secret from my granddaughter." Laeedath let out a heavy sigh. "I'm afraid it reopens her old wounds..."

"Do you have your henshin pen with you?" Akane whispered addressing Haruka. "Tie it on a sturdy cord and put it on your neck. Our travel could get rough.

"Already done," the tall blond grinned lopsidedly as she pulled a few centimeters of rope from under her collar.

"Please tell me, granny," Ranma asked with an uncharacteristic tact, "your daughter, she... What were her combat abilities? I'm dearly sorry but it's vital for us to know." She bowed.

"Mmm... I see, you take this seriously. Very well. My daughter possessed two talents that allowed her to brave the dinosaur infested forests. Unlike such a stay-at-homer as me. Firstly, the ability to notice them before they notice her. A combination of tracking and a skill to work the interactor scanners. She was peerless in that area." The old woman sighed. "And secondly, mastery of all kinds of guns. A sniper shotgun, a boomstick, a revolver, a concealed revolver in her boot — she never traveled with less than that."(note 1)

"Uh-huh." Ranma frowned. "Then it should have been something uncommon, hard to detect, or just a pack big enough that she ran out of ammo."

"Ranma!" Akane hissed fiercely.

"No, Miss Anarchy is right," Laeedath stopped her. "You have to think of all possibilities, this is important for your survival... The problem is, I have nothing to share. I'm not a woman of action, so I have little actual idea about my daughter's craft. She could have erred. She could have met an insurmountable set of circumstances. Or she was simply so hurried in her joy that she became careless. I had been thinking this over for years, but alas. You would have to rely upon your own judgment and skills."

Ahstat returned with an armful of clothing. Ranma left the room hastily, grabbing her backpack from the bench. Then she stood outside, leaning against the wall next to the fur curtain.

"I didn't think she is that shy," a medallion's voice reached her, muffled by the curtain. But who had said that, the grandmother or the granddaughter, remained unknown.

Soon the four of them emerged from behind the curtain. Haruka was dressed in an elegant pants suit. All five of them went outside. The crowd of children hadn't dissipated: it seems there were no other pastimes available for them.

"I wish you good luck," Ahstat said loudly, and bit her lip. Her eyes were glistening conspicuously. "So long!" She slammed the squeaky wooden door shut leaving the three Japanese girls alone with the old woman. And the whispering children. The raptor's tail lost what remained of its plume.

Laeedath led the girls through the maze of winding streets, moving pretty swiftly. Very soon they found themselves at the town gate. Here they had to stop while the old woman sorted the younger generation: it seemed, the most little ones were barred from leaving the town. The process was accompanied with much clamor. One of the bearded men manning the watchtower was called down to help. Finally, some of the children were filtered out, the rest allowed to go outside under a sworn oath to keep close to Laeedath, with disobedience to be met with a terrible punishment. At least, Akane interpreted it so: her medallion choked in the first seconds of ruckus, and from that point on kept spewing pearls like "pink-turpentine idiosyncrasy" or "hypertensor spanking".

Even while trying to be good boys and girls the children posed so much a burden that there was no chance to talk until they reached the outer wall. Ranma, having a weak spot for kids, finally gave up, handing the velociraptor carcass to the munchkins. She justified this saying "If that zone is really swarming with these, we'll have a lot more chances to catch us a dinner."

But there was the wall, at last. The familiar man climbed down from his watchtower, grumbling in discontent. He began lifting the ladder again.

"Wait, I'll get the second one for you", he grumbled.

"Thanks, but no need," Ranma stopped him. "We'll just jump down."

Meanwhile, a familiar youngster wandered in from the second watchtower. Seeing Laeedath standing next to Ranma, he didn't dare to stare at her. He started bullying the kids instead. He had almost succeeded in taking the velociraptor carcass from them when the wise woman suddenly turned around, laying into him. Ranma had the pleasure of witnessing a new record being set in rapid paling. Whatever the old woman said to him — quiet but heartfelt — the wannabe bully released this trophy and made himself scarce much quicker than that time when the man barked at him.

"Well, we're going," Ranma said, then all but flew up the ladder. "Akane, you'll be getting Haruka down." She jumped down at the other side of the wall.

"Many thanks you for your invaluable help, granny." Akane bowed, then hurried up the ladder.

Haruka started climbing up next. "Laeedath-san," she asked over her shoulder. "What are _your_·geas?"

"To prevent development of the internal combustion engine," the old woman replied without delay.

"I see." Haruka became grim. "Good luck to you. I don't think I'd have a heart to... like this..."

But she was high up at this point, and the wind was noisy. The old woman's medallion stayed silent.

"By the way!" Ranma called them from below, suddenly agitated. "Do we have these geass? And if we do, then what are these? I don't want to be stuck forever hell knows where because of breaking some rule I didn't know about."

"Right away!" Spooked, Akane started digging in the medallion frantically. Losing her balance, she barely avoided impaling herself on the sharpened poles the top of the wall was bristling with. Then she slammed the lid shut with a sigh of relief. "To prevent development of traveling between worlds that bypass using the transport network. This is hard to break even if we'd wanted to."

"So if we find someone who's inventing their own kind of portals between worlds, then we have to stop him?" Ranma inquired. "Yeah, that's unlikely."

"Excuse me..." Akane scooped Haruka up — not the easiest task considering that the other girl was taller. Easily jumping down from the six-meter wall she put the blond on her feet.

"As I understand, we'd be going to some sort of a portal?" Haruka asked.

"Yes," Ranma replied. "It's not far from here, at the foot of these mountains, up a tree." Then she added in an impish voice: "Right above the swamp into which someone had dumped us."

Akane cringed but didn't deign the barb with a reply. She turned to the rescued girl instead: "Haruka-san, Laeedath-baasan said you'll tell us how to use the medallion... And what in the world is Ahs?"

"How to use...?" Haruka grew puzzled. "Well, as far as I remember, she said everything in it is simple and obvious. But you have to learn on your own: the interactor just won't accept commands from anyone but its owner, it uses DNA recognition."

"Like that," Akane drawled with disappointment. It surely did not feel 'easy' nor 'obvious' to her.

"Well, it also has an encyclopedia," Haruka added. "But most of its articles, it seems, are written by users or Lords. There's no guarantee of accuracy. On top of that, transmitting articles from world to world isn't free. Generally, a world has as many of them available as users manage to bring on their interactors. Except the rare system articles. If you want to learn more, then pay with your quota.

"But what is Ahs?" Ranma returned the conversation onto the tracks.

"No one knows," Haruka shocked them. "There's an unknown number of worlds. All of the ones known to the old hag are variations of planet Earth. There are transport nodes in these worlds. There also are users and lords — who, I suspect are users too, just more high ranked. And then there's the system that stands over it all.

"Where do the users come from?"

"They say, the system from time to time chooses people on its own, using principles only it knows." Haruka shruged. "If that is true or not, you have to ask them yourself. Ahs-users aren't the most open and talkative people. Laeedath and the other wise women like her somehow pass this status on their children. She wasn't especially forthcoming in this regard. She only said that such order, if judge by indirect indicators, holds for centuries."

"And no one, in all that time, did make an effort to learn the truth?" Ranma was bewildered.

"Maybe." Haruka's expression became far from sunny. "If you remember the words about 'spontaneous erasing' of those who learns too much..."

"Erasing? Their memories?" Ranma asked this for the second time.

"I doubt," Haruka said. "I would sooner believe in erasing people from reality so that there's no trace is left of them."

Ranma and Akane started. They have been sure, up to recent time, that that was exactly what had happened to Haruka. Could Usagi really...?

"A nice place, in short," Haruka continued. "The old woman herself is inclined towards the theory of this all being some sort of grandiose experiment. Random omnipotent beings produced a set of copies of Earth and began walking up and down their inhabitant's spines ... The dinosaurs couldn't have possibly risen from fossils all by themselves. All the more so that the shapes of the continents everywhere match to our era, not Jurassic.

"So, the Ahs-Lords are these experimenters?" Akane asked.

"Who knows. Maybe they are. Maybe they are the same guinea pigs, just fatter. Maybe that zero one is the experimenter. Or just the most prominent guinea pig. There's no body to tell you. From all appearances, overly curious people don't live long here."

"Like the daughter of Laeedath-san!" Akane exclaimed, stopping in her tracks from this frightening realization. "Could we get in—"

"Let's talk to Ami first, all right?" the redhead interrupted her. "If we keep wild guessing like that we'd tie ourselves into— Watch out!" She pushed Haruka aside, at the same time knocking an orange blur away. Attacks started coming from all sides, swift and coordinated, three or four creatures at once. Ranma was twisting and ducking pushed to the limit, unable to counterattack as she had to keep flailing the tall blond around like a ragdoll, all too aware of how breakable the other girl was.

A second later the velociraptors were swept away by the whirlwind named Akane. This time many of them failed to retreat, her strikes were swift and merciless.

Two seconds of mad dodging, then it was over. Only Akane stood in a combat stance, glancing around warily, and the orange carcasses kept twitching, not having realized yet they were dead.

"Ugh... I don't feel... too well." Haruka stumbled and sank down onto to her knees. She held her palms against the ground that kept swaying wildly, making her stomach churn.

"Don't worry," Akane reassured, her voice wavering. "I'll carry you." She shrugged her backpack off, handing it to Ranma who noticed how pale her wife was. "Don't be alarmed, you are all right. Unhurt."

There was a gaping rip in the shoulder of the blond's jacket. Despite all their efforts! And that was not too large a pack. Ranma noted to herself grimly that their ability to protect a non-combatant from a swarm of small things leaved much to desire. Very much. Granted, Akane's basic Senshi technique, "Iridescent Aurora", was tailored for such a case. But barring that, they had nothing of comparable use in the Anything-Goes arsenal. Ranma recalled the damage her, Ryouga and Mousse received on Mount Horai from a pack of monkeys who went ape-shit on them.(note 2) Of course the hairy things then had their behinds handed to them, and were promptly punted away. But they still managed to inflict a fair share of scrapes. What if it had been something poisonous? What if the claw that ripped through Haruka's jacket reached a centimeter further?

She had to invent some technique for such a case. Firing a ki-blast at the ground under her feet, to make a shock-wave? She had to think on that.

"So that's how they are, the dinosaurs." Haruka glanced at the orange, black-striped carcasses sporting huge wicked claws. She wasn't clutching at the ground anymore, but still wasn't in a hurry to get up. "If the small ones are like that, I don't even want to think what these giants who are paraded in the museums are capable of."

"Even nastier", Ranma grumbled as she kept listening intently. The bushes rustling in the wind were effectively masking any sounds. "Let's go already?"

Akane helped Haruka to rise up and climb onto her back. Then they sped through the sparse forest with huge leaps. Entering the jungle, they continued by tree-tops, shinobi style. In a blink of an eye they were back at the small bog.

"Here's the swamp where we landed," Ranma commented as she gestured around the said bog.

"Alarm!" the medallion added its voice. "Detecting a multitude of sanguivorous life forms in the air! Deterring system power is insufficient!"

"And mosquitoes are still here," the redhead added. "Let's hurry up, so far no other beast had crawled in on us."

"I feel some sort of deja vu," Akane mumbled as she let Haruka down. "Aha, here's that tree."

"Danger!" the medallion howled, "Detecting a large carnivorous life form!"

The underbrush crunched, and there was suddenly a gap-toothed maw looming over the girls. The left eye was glowing with vengeful hatred. The right one was swollen shut.

Haruka backed away, risking to fall into the bog.

"You again?！" Ranma saw red. "How long will you keep pestering us?！"

The T. rex roared, blowing the hair of the girls back. Haruka plopped onto her posterior.

"Take this, you crum!" Ranma roared in return. "Shishiii... Hokouuu... DAN‼"

"Raitsui Dan!" Akane echoed.

Two ki-blasts fired point-blank slammed into the targed, and the dinosaur was simply swept away. Legs flicked up for a moment, then tail, then there were only the disturbed bushes swaying as some broken tree was failing slowly and creakily.

"I can't help notice that your 'shishi hokou dan's are becoming really powerful," Akane noted with concern. "That was close to the ultimate form!"(note 2)

"It's just that he really pissed me off!" Ranma growled, tearing a giant leech from Haruka's pant leg and throwing it into the bog with such a force that the hapless sanguinivore overflew its habitat, wrapping itself around a tree branch on the other side of it. "With assholes like him any fool could master the ultimate form. Let's climb already while he haven't crawled back out. Ahs-seven Tkhachshchas Eet Suht, open the portal."

The portal appeared amidst the broken tree branches with a sharp click. The martial artists climbed to it quickly, lifting Haruka in their arms. Finding herself in the kaleidoscopic hall she started looking around. "Impressive, but his hall of mirrors makes my head swim. How could you stay here without losing your orientation? It's like its creator wasn't human or just wasn't thinking about comfort of those using it..."

"It's all a part of Ahs," Ranma explained with disdain. "Who could have thought you can gain useful abilities by swallowing... Blarg. But without these abilities we'd be unable to save anyone."

"Meanwhile, Akane was tapping the keys hastily. "There are two possible routes. One is a haul shorter but we'd have to go through—"

"Wait," Ranma interrupted her. "Please check if we can open the portal directly to back home. We can sacrifice my quota if we have to. These tokens could be our only chance, while traveling back and forth sparingly could take several days."

"But we have agreed that your quota is our emergency supply! Our last resort."

"It's emergency right now. We have to bring Haruka home, either way. We have to figure out where we need to go, we can't do that without Ami. So, we have to open portal home. From this place, if possible. If not, then from the closest possible point along our route towards home."

You are right," Akane gave up. She started tapping the keys, the medallion beeped several times. "Done, targeting completed. But it will take seventy percent of your quota to open, then eighty per minute while the portal is open." She handed the medallion to the redhead.

"Bugger." Ranma scowled. "Anyway, Ami is not that bad a runner. I hope we'd have enough to put her back."

"Back?" Akane asked.

"Of course!" Ranma was genuinely surprised. "As we go into that breeding ground to get the token — how long, do you think, she'd live if she comes with us?"

"So I noticed," Haruka injected, rubbing her shoulder through the tear in the sleeve. "If this area is considered mild, then you guys will need everything you have just to stay alive in that place."

"Agreed! You only have to step through, we'll call Ami all together." Akane turned to Ranma. "Are you ready?"

"Here we go." The redhead pushed the button. The mechanical voice started droning, listing various safety conditions by numbers that weren't telling the girls anything. Then the portal had closed, and they were submerged in darkness. A moment later it was replaced with the dull light of polar day.

Haruka stepped outside and shivered from the frosty wind. "Mercury, where are you!" she shouted.

"Hey, Ami!" Ranma yelled, poking her head out of the portal to search for a lone figure in a short skirt. To her surprise, she found several such figures. Weren't they going to teleport to Tokyo, or what?

"Mercury!" Akane barked, leaning from the other side. "Run here! Quick!"

"Go-go-go!" Ranma added. "Move it!"

Separating from the others, Mercury ran towards the portal. Detransforming on the run, she lost speed stumbling in her home shoes.

"Hurry!" Ranma and Akane chorused, urging her.

"Haruka-san...?" The blue-haired girl stopped frozen in her tracks.

Ranma grabbed her by the shoulder, jerking the shocked girl inside.

"But they told me everyone except you should already be—" Haruka had time to say with surprise. Then the portal closed, cutting her off and leaving the three of them in the darkness.

"There are thirty eight percent left," Akane concluded with a sigh, her face lit with the green glow of the screen.

"You see, we have some unforeseen complications here," Ranma explained to the shell-shocked Ami.

(シーンブレイク)

July 25, 2012. Translated August 28, 2012 and September 16, 2012.

**Author's notes:**

**1**  
The old lady is not that good with firearms.

**2**  
For Ranma, Ryouga and Mousse versus monkeys, see vol. 24, chapter 5 of the manga.


	18. Chasing the Clue

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 18  
Chasing the Clue**

Ami was feeling both relief and frustration. Relief because her worst fear did not become reality. Ranma and Akane were alive and well, which meant they haven't meet any khas-eeschaeets. Ami had been torturing herself with guilt for making decision for them, as she withheld information that could have been vital. That was a thing of the past now. But an another weight came to replace the one she had shed. The task at hand had no solution! None at all! If she had more knowledge, more experience in this new, completely unfamiliar area, where she had to move like blinded with a dense fog! But she had neither. Her worst nightmare found a way into reality. She was letting them down! In a vital matter this time!

"I can't. There's just no way," she said, not meeting their eyes. "I am so sorry. This entire system seems to be built around the rights limitations, while our access level is the lowest there is." The girl genius closed the medallion with a sigh, to hand it to Akane.

"Could you at least tell us what this Ahs thing really is?" Ranma asked with poorly hidden frustration in her voice as she continued to wave mosquitoes away from the girl genius with a branch. They had tried to sit in the hall at first, cut off from the outside world in the darkness. But it had quickly grew intolerably hot. So they moved onto the tree top, opening the portal at the old coordinates. The three of them had been sitting there since, one working, two keeping the tide of bloodsuckers away from her. No one wanted to waste even a little time... But, as it was turning out, their efforts were in vain. Ami felt an another pang of guilt.

"I'm sorry." She hung her head. "All information, it's filtered so much that there aren't even speculations concerning the topics I need."

"Rrranma!" The redhead's spouse hit her upside the head so good that a big lump emerged on her head, her eyes tearing up. "How could you be such a insensitive jerk! Honestly! Ami-chan, forgive us, I know you did everything you could!"

"Shutting up already," Ranma hissed as she felt for her lump gingerly. "Let's carry her to the old woman, will we? She'd be safe there while we run for the token."

"No, no, there's no need!" Ami injected hastily. "I can sit here, I'll be fine. It's far enough from the ground and—"

A low, rolling growl reached from the forest below. A huge head, with one eye swollen shut and most of its teeth broken, emerged from the undergrowth. Then it started moving, parting bushes and dipping periodically as its owner sported a noticeable limp. Which wasn't preventing him from glaring at the girls with one eye and growling menacingly, promising he'll pay them back, just you wait.

Ami startled, her eyes growing wide. The T. rex, even beaten up as he was, posed an impressive sight.

Ranma made a threatening move. The dinosaur immediately made himself scarce, retreating back into the undergrowth. His roar rolled around, misleading indirect as if it was coming from everywhere at once.

"Yeah, we'll leave you sitting here, he'll crawl back out, even though his ass is kicked, and drop your tree into the swamp. The eighty eight leeches there will make a short work of gnawing you through to the bone."

"Rrranma!" Akane raised her arm, and the redhead cringed. "I'm tired already of beating sense into you, honestly!"

"I didn't say anything wrong," the other girl defended unrepentantly. "The leeches there are really thick as my leg, their teeth like beaver's, you have had held one yourself. And there are really more than eighty of 'em."

Akane just sighed, frustrated: how could he not understand such simple things?

(シーンブレイク)

"Are you sure you don't need a weapon?" asked Ahstat. The martial artists were busy packing one lean backpack for a short trip, having chosen Akane's for its lack of holes. "A knife at least?" The young woman was convinced that her grandmother was sending the girls to their certain doom. So she was fretting as best as she could.

"A knife?" Ranma rummaged in the backpack, and produced a large hunting knife. "We do have one. I just couldn't think of any use of it as a weapon." She pulled the knife out of its sheath, tested its sharpness with her thumb and slid it back in, tying the strap. "Against any opponent I could think of, it would be less useful than my bare hands. A cut is more lethal, but it won't stop the attacker right away, like a punch does. Instead of a knocked out opponent, or at least a staggered one, you get someone wounded lethally but dangerous twice as much. Them bleeding out won't happen right away. While our vital goal is to avoid getting wounded. We don't have to kill our opponents dead. It would be more expedient to knock 'em out or cripple them, then run away, if avoiding the fight is possible. Not to mention that a hand occupied with a knife becomes useless for grappling, climbing and so on. It's awfully inflexible. No, a knife in hand lowers our defense considerably."

"What about slashing at their throats?" Akane suggested with a uncharacteristic blood-thirstiness. Looking at the knife made her remember various dinosaurs. Where did Ranma get it from? She had been sure they didn't have one.

"Where I can reach their throat I'd rather punch them, to knock them out right away," the redhead replied in a lecturing voice. "Any animal, and a man too, could still strike one more time when their throat is cut. Never forget this. Well, and I've said it already what our main goal is."

"So, any weapon is worse than useless for you?" Ami asked, her interest piqued. Knowing the details was important from the tactical point of view, bu she hadn't have a good question them on this particular topic. They have been fighting things a magical girl is purposed to fight, their powers infinitely more efficient again demons than any weapon.

"Not entirely true." Ranma scratched the back of her head. "A quarterstaff would be very useful. On the other hand, the hassle of carrying it... Anyway, where would we get a good, sturdy quarterstaff here? No, it's better to not have one that it breaking at the wrong time. We'll have to improvise. Using broken off branches if we need to fight snakes, and the like. But this," she demonstrated the knife. "This is a tool." She put the knife away in Akane's backpack. (note 1)

(シーンブレイク)

They ran the route from the valley to the portal tree quickly, it was learned by rote now. Akane had raised a question of bringing the exit point closer to the village, but Ami scrapped that idea right away, explaining that there was a margin of error on a scale of several kilometers while aiming from an another world. There was no guarantee their next attempt would bear a better result. After all, the last time they were aiming properly, it at a point inside the settlement. And their quota was too finite to allow playing such a lottery.

Akane was now casting promising glares at the redhead, contemplating of a better payback for all the accusations of crook-handedness.

They didn't have to shoo the tyrannosaurus this time: he was lurking in the dense underbush revealing himself only with vengeful growls.

Akane stood fumbling with the medallion, and swearing under her breath. Ranma listened in, having nothing better to do. She noted absently that her spouse's vocabulary was much richer than the former wannabe yamato nadeshiko wanted everyone to believe.

Finally the portal opened, revealing savannah lit by the reddish-orange evening sun.

"It's fifty two kilometers." Akane pointed with her arm as she stepped through the opening. "How do you think, would we make it in one hour?" She was exuding a desire to dash towards the horizon.

It was too long since we were running seriously, Ranma thought as she remembered Akane's old morning jogs around the block where the doujou stood. Even then, being barely trained, her speed was impressive. Now, when her true speed was long awakened, that measly distance wouldn't satisfy her. Ranma felt a pang of guilt as she remembered how constricting was Tokyo for Akane, especially Juuban. But when training in the wild, they were so focused on beating each other that they never had time, nor energy left for running marathon distances.

The desert race didn't count at all, that was more a torture session of endurance training than anything.

"You don't have to ask." The redhead smirked. "Let's race." Then her face turned serious. "Just let's not miss the edge of that Bermutsa trapezoid where people go missing."

"Well, the beasts there simply won't be able to gain on us, however dire they may be," Akane noted, digging in the medallion with impatience. "Probably... Here, I marked it. Don't worry, it's at the very end, some ten kilometers around the node."

"A cheetah could," Ranma reminded her. "Though without ki, it wouldn't last long. Anyway, don't get overconfident... No, that's not what worries me. I don't believe the beasts are the cause. The locals, those who travel around, they are hardy people. It's not that simple. They call on the beasts to _explain_·the disappearances, but what if it's something else...? All right, let's run, we'll get to the bottom of it there," she finished seeing Akane dance in place, practically vibrating.

They flew across the hard, dry land covered with tufts of rough, whitered grass. It was really running, not huge leaps, this time. It's good to move in leaps when you need to show off, or when you move through rough country. Granted, leaping is faster, but it tires you much more with each kilometer passed: on the speeds like that, air resistance becomes the most prominent energy absorber. You have to either put more energy into your legs, or to decrease that resistance using ki. Which, in turn, requires concentration, exertion of your willpower, and energy again. Running is much more efficient, pity that not every terrain is suitable for it, Ranma mused as she tried her best to not fall behind. Why don't they have a bicycle with them.(note 2)

Akane chose a break-neck pace at first, so that Ranma barely kept up with her, worrying she'd tire herself out. But Akane came to her senses a few kilometers later, slowing down to manageable speeds. Now they could run for hours... if they had a healthy meal afterwards. Preferably, consisting of a bigger dinosaur.

Sun was shining from their back and right, crawling slowly towards the horizon. The light, still bright, was starting to gain orange tones. The heat, though, wasn't receding at all. Half a hour later Ranma grew all sweaty and thirsty. She reached for Akane's backpack to take the canteen. But the other girl felt like taunting her, and decided to play tag. As a result, they reached the edge of the danger zone in forty minutes instead of the planned hour. The number of dinosaurs carnivorous, herbivorous and who-knows-I-was-running-too-fast-to-get-a-look that she scared up, riled or even pulled at their tails, counted in dozens. Despite this semi-desert land being scarcely populated!

"Stop! Stop, I say!" Ranma was yelling after her. The redhead had to perform an obstacle race, jumping over and dodging those dinosaurs who chose to keep swallowing dust in their attempts to get back at Akane. The scaly ones, however, were tiring quickly and giving up. Except that one ten-ton triceratops, its bone collar covered with scars. Taking a great offense at Akane flipping it on the tip of its beak, it continued to chase her until it fell from exhaustion. Ranma hoped dearly that the immense beast will not die from exhaustion like a horse ridden to death. "Stop, will you‼！"

A black triangle of the sharp-pointed pyramid emerged on the horizon. Noticing it, Akane came to her senses ans skid to a halt, raising clouds of dust. Breathing heavily, she opened the medallion in a hurry. Ranma caught up with her, heaving as well, and slapped her upside the head lightly: "Who should watch the environment for you!"

Both were soaked with sweat and disheveled, but Ranma also was the color of the local soil, except her eyes. Making a disgusted exclamation, she started patting herself down.

"We are almost upon our destination," Akane noted with embarrassment as she displayed the medallion screen.

"Yeah," Ranma grumbled, smearing the grime that was covering her face. "After kicking dust across this supposedly deadly zone for several kilometers!" She pointed at the faraway pyramid. "Who should have watched for the border? That thing shouldn't be visible from the spot where we should have slowed down and doubled our caution!"

"Well," Akane wasn't about to give up. "The direct check of the beasts showed that they aren't any more dangerous here than I other places."

"Hmm..." Ranma grew thoughtful. "_For us_, surely. But take the recent triceratops. I haven't seen anything like it before. For someone who couldn't run really fast he'd be a deadly terror, a juggernaut of doom. I suspect any bullets would just ping off that bone mask... All right, let's hope they're simply bigger here. And that the one that devoured um... how is her name, the daughter of the old woman Laeedath, hadn't chewed the token to pieces.

Akane noted the direction. They ran again, slower this time, watching their sides, ready to dash any moment. Sun was quite close to the horizon now, the world turning orange and the shadows, that were stretching to their front-left, growing long and deep.

They haven't meet any dinosaurs, until — that rotten luck again — they reached their destination. There was a large pack of man-sized predators, something in-between the tiny swift velociraptor and the ponderous T. rex. Covered with reddish-brown scales, with no feathers in sight, the things started encircling the girls, while making a riot of shrill squawks. The teeth in the maws opened menacingly were small but sharp.

"Here we go again," Akane growled, taking a ready stance as she cast a dirty glare at the dinosaurs.

"Wait." Ranma narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "I got a feeling they are herding us!"

"Herding?" Akane cast a quick glance behind her. There was the same rock-hard sandy ground, sparse tufts of rough grass, and a lone tree. "Herding is usually done towards some place, not from an empty plain to the same empty plain!" She started suddenly, and turned to look behind her one more time. "What, an ambush in the tree...?" Though the crown was wide, it was see-through, and the branches were thin. "No, there's no one there. Besides, these dinosaurs are too massive to climb trees.

The said dinosaurs, meanwhile, made another aggressive step forward, all at once, their wide open maws emitting shrill squawks. Akane stepped back, thinking how she could better— And the ground fell from under her foot with an ugly splorching sound! Shuddering in a short-lived fright, she managed to pull her foot out while it still wasn't deeper than up to the ankle, all thanks to her lightning fast reflexes. She jumped away on instinct, faster than she could think, to land closer to the tree trunk. This time her other foot started sinking. It didn't dip any deeper, though, despite the momentum of her landing, as she was ready this time. Tearing her foot free — it seemed that the boot caught on something — Akane dodged upwards, where she grabbed with one hand onto a hanging branch, and continued hanging there, swinging around like a gibbon.

"Careful, there are traps here!" she voiced the obvious.

The dinosaurs erupted with disappointed clucking, then shifted their aim to Ranma.

"So that's how you want it to be!" the dust-colored girl was outraged. "All right, come get what you're asking for!" She attacked them headlong.

The dinosaurs rushed her, forming a large dogpile... Out of which they started flying in all directions, tumbling through the air. Being much bigger than velociraptors, this species of predator exchanged the former's swiftness for brute strength. The brute strength that was never of use against Ranma.

One, then another predator landed under the tree. Yelping like wounded rabbits, they jumped up to flee. One fell into a trap right away, the other one almost made it when the ground gave under its foot ten meter later. This was a cue for the rest of them to run away. Ranma was still holding one by the end of its tail, but it just kept windmilling its legs throwing sand at her in its urgent desire to get away. She simply released him. Soon there was no trace of the dinosaurs.

While Ranma was busy Akane could observe from above as the both unlucky dinosaurs thrashed, trying to get free. But they were just sinking deeper as if something was pulling at them from below. In just a few seconds their movement became jerky and stiff, soon leading to convulsions and then paralysis. When Ranma turned around she saw only two glassy-eyed carcasses, one leg of each sucked completely into the ground, up to their bodies.

"Be careful of poison there!" Akane did again warn about the obvious. She then noticed deep scratches on her boots glistening with slime. She shuddered. "I think these aren't traps but rather some animals hiding under the ground!"

"Animals?" Ranma looked around the innocent-looking part of savannah. There was not a hint of movement, nobody tried to pull the trapped predators deeper of gnaw on their underground legs. The silence was complete and still. The redhead closed her eyes and froze, tuning out everything but her chi senses. Then she shook up, opening her eyes. "Predatory plants, more likely. There's not just no killing intent from them, there's nothing at all. Like it's only grass there. Be so kind, throw me a stick."

"Plants?" Akane got a better hold, remembering with a shudder of how _suddenly_·it had happened. The danger sense she got used to rely upon to some extent, it stayed silent like a fish. "Would this do?" She snapped a branch with a palm chop, then in an another place, producing a stick of approximately a meter in length. She threw it to Ranma.

The redhead started moving carefully towards the closest carcass, all the while poking the stick at the ground in front of her in a semi-circular pattern. After one poke the stick pierced the earth, going deeper with a familiar disgusting splorch. Ranma started poking around inside the dark hole, which had the width of a palm. Then she pulled the stick out with an effort. It was sporting deep gouges, covered in a layer of slime.

"Just as I thought. There's a kind of a bag there, widens toward the bottom. With incurved thorns. It stinks definitely as a plant, like rotting roots."

"So these are everywhere?" Akane asked with horror, unable to tear her gaze away from the dead dinosaurs. There was not a hint, not a warning. A fleeting moment, and everything was over. For how long had they been running across this savannah, completely unaware!

"I don't think so," Ranma replied as she eyed the tree her wife was hanging from sceptically. "Do you remember any trees like this one? I got a feeling we haven't seen anything like it before."

"No, I don't think we have..." Akane drawled. The tree was huge, but kind of thin. A too-thin trunk, think branches with the ends hanging down. It crown was as wide as that of any baobab, but resembled a weeping willow. A scraggy weeping willow: there was too little foliage, making the crown see-through, and it was dark, looking lead-gray in the orange light of the sunset. Then Akane caught on the meaning. She almost fell off. "It's a man-eating tree?！"

"It is," Ranma agreed. "Don't fret, if it could devour with its branches it would've done you in already. Naw, it could only eat with its roots, growing traps under the ground. This is reassuring, you know. One tree couldn't have put these that far and wide around. We could go on without trouble, we just have to avoid trees like this. Let's check it right away, how far does it reach." She started walking in a widening spiral, poking at the ground.

Akane collected herself, then made one more stick and climbed down, poking at the ground at the base of the tree vigorously. She too started walking in a spiral. There were no traps close to the tree, but at some three meters these started emerging abruptly, spaced so tightly that she had to tread carefully. The ground near the narrow holes could sag suddenly, starting to slip into the poisonous orifice. This hinted at the bags being at least as wide as a barrel. Once, the unplugged hole erupted with a wave of overpowering stench of decay, making Akane stumble and almost fall for an another trap. After that, she was doubly careful as she continued defusing the minefield.

When Akane finished her spiral where Ranma started, and Ranma went well out, it became clear that the traps reached the edges of the tree crown, gradually becoming sparser.

"That's the limit of its reach," Ranma noted. The orange tones were becoming deeper, delving into reddish-orange. The shadows were grasping for infinity. "These lizards are scavengers, they don't look like hunters. Such a symbi-howza-ya-callit they have here. The tree is has to make do with single legs, while they eat everything above... Let's move it, the dark is falling soon. Is it far to the place?"

"No," Akane said quietly, depressed by the brutal mundanity of the death residing here. "It's only some fifty meters." She pointed away from the tree.

They found some barely noticeable sand bumps there. Ranma cautiously dredged one up wit her stick, to unearth a pile of bones with gnaw marks on them.

"The bastards earth it, making effort not to alert their prey." Abandoning all caution, she started plowing the bumps open. "Search for human ones. It should be safe here, they wouldn't choose this place otherwise."

Akane was digging diligently, but by far she was finding only animal bones. Some with strands of meat, even. "I'm afraid, we have to dig the ground. A bump like that couldn't have survived for twenty years." She was about to abandon her stick and dig with her hands, but then she thought better of it: such dastardly critters could have dropped poisonous barbs here.

They went pickaxing the packed earth with their sticks. They haven't been digging for long when Ranma stumbled on a chain, pulling a medallion exactly like theirs from the ground, its screen dark. Soon Akane uprooted a human skull. She gasped, then put it aside carefully, and continued digging so cautiously as if she was expecting to unearth a crystal vase. Her speed plummeted.

Ranma glanced at the sun. It didn't have far to go till horizon. "Let me unearth the remains," she said as she walked up to her wife. "You search for the token." She reached into the lean backpack on Akane's back, and pulled that huge hunting knife out.

"No, I can do this," Akane replied stubbornly.

"Then take the knife, at least. It's easier to dig with," Ranma insisted.

Akane looked at the knife doubtfully. But she took it, and using it she really sped up.

Seeing the delay averted, Ranma went plowing the sandy ground with two sticks in a widening spiral.

(シーンブレイク)

Ami was feeling very awkward. Only a titanic exertion of will was allowing her to refrain from scratching and fidgeting: the woolen dress was _prickling_. And chafing. And irritating. It wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't wearing _only_·this woolen dress. Ahstat proved to be... In short, she could haggle more aggresssively than even Akane-chan's elder sister.

It all began with Ami arriving in a state of dress grossly improper by the local standards. Not to mention that it was _cold_·in only a brasserie and mini-skirt, she attracted the eyes of what looked like the entire male population of the valley. Someone even barely avoided falling from the watchtower. Ami blushed, ducked her head and wished again that ground would open and swallow her up. The very memory of these events was making her cheeks heat up!

Later it was found, that such a basic thing as a modern lingerie is practically worth its weight in gold in this world. And then, the shy girl just couldn't say 'no' when Ahstat, calculating like a hundred Nabikis, started to haggle.

Well, she couldn't say 'no' loud enough. The fact, that she and Ahstat were roughly the same size, sealed her fate. Ami shivered, remembering how _deftly_·she was liberated of the lingerie. She just began protesting weakly when, and instant later, she found herself in her birthday suit. And now she was a proud owner of the monstrously itchy green dress.

Wincing when she made an awkward movement, Ami thought that, on the positive side, she was at least kept distracted from worrying about Akane-chan and Ranma-kun.

(シーンブレイク)

October 6, 2012. Translated October 12, 2012.

**Author's notes:**

**1**  
It's often incorrectly thought that Ranma is averse to using weapons. While the truth is that any weapons short of epic/legendary magical ones are useless trash for him, at his advanced level. And the Ranmaverse isn't exactly teeming with legendary weapons, Gekkaja and Kinjakan non-withstanding.

**2**  
Re-read the manga and you'll see that the heroes prefer running to bounding/leaping whenever possible.


	19. Dark Surprises

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Chapter 19  
Dark Surprises**

"Ain't this what we're searching for?" Ranma inquired.

Akane didn't reply, busy digging with the knife and her hands. Earth fountaining, the hole was growing deeper with each second. She had found several ribs and two shin-bones. Now she was carefully unearthing the... third shin-bone? Akane frowned. Something was wrong here. She put the bone to the rest of them, and continued digging. Pity they couldn't find every bone. Scavengers surely scattered them wide, you have to have a shovel and a week. The girls had neither. Akane shivered. Dying like that, suddenly, to be buried hastily, two decades later... She continued digging.

"What sort of mockery is this?" Ranma exclaimed in outrage as she straightened up to stand there hip-shot.

"What?" Akane stopped digging and jumped out of the asymmetric hole. "What's the matter?" She walked up to her husband, and saw the redhead glaring at an orange-sized shiny ball, visible in through the parted fabric of a rotten bag. "It's... It's a token, isn't it?" She beamed. "We found it!" She hastily reached down to grab it.

"Wait, it's all—" Ranma tried to stop her, but failed. Akane touched the ball, turning for a brief moment into a mirror statue. A line of unintelligible black characters popped up over her head, fading quickly. The raven haired girl didn't notice, startled by her medallion suddenly erupting with a corny stirring melody.

Akane straightened up sharply, trying to open it. It was awkward with one hand, so she thrust the ball at Ranma: "Take it!"

Ranma received the suspicious object with apprehension, its icy paw stroking her along her back: for that moment when Akane was a mirror statue, her movement ceased abruptly, violating all the laws of inertia — just to continue as unnaturally. And more, when she was straightening up, there was a sudden jump in her movement, like a film with a few frames cut out of it. Ranma was feeling extremely ill at ease. What was that? What did just happen to them? The most disturbing was the fact that she didn't feel anything at all. Her danger sense kept silent, as did her other ki senses.

"Right!" Akane informed joyfully as she continued digging through the medallion. "This one is the first of seven. We have six more to collect and — just listen! — there's a, um, 'leading hypercontinuum loop' reserved for us! It will show us the coordinates of the rest of these." Her enthusiasm wilted a bit. "Though, I can't figure out how to—"

"Seven, you say?" Ranma asked, examining the ball resting on her palm. "This is definitely some sort of mockery! Just look at this! It's even the four-star one, to add insult to injury!"

"The four-star one?" Akane said, incomprehension clear in her voice, as she tore her eyes from the screen to take a good look at the token, at last.

The ball lying on Ranma's palm shone like liquid metal, reflecting the deep orange of the dusk sky with its inner, mirror-like surface, where the outer surface was transparent. Adding to the weirdness, four pitch-black squiggles were floating lazily inside the ball.

"Does it remind you of something?" Ranma asked grimly.

"No." Akane lifted her eyes to look at her. "Should it?"

"Oh, right, it's for boys..." Ranma grumbled under her breath. Then she explained: "In short, there's a manga I read when I was a kid. There's a dragon there who could grant any wish. To summon him, you have to collect seven dragonballs from all around the world." She held the ball out for Akane to get a better look. "What's peculiar, these are right about this size, just with stars inside them, rather than runes. The story begins with the heroes finding the four-star one... Now tell me it's not a scam!"

"Well, I don't know. Maybe Ahs-Asch read that manga too, and he really liked the idea. Anyway, the medallion received a confirmatory message, and our portal quota is now unlimited.

"Really?" Ranma perked up. "Then we could shift Ami back and forth whenever we need to use her!"

"She's not a thing," Akane chided her spouse mildly. A resounding smack upside the head rolled over the wide savannah.

(シーンブレイク)

Ranma destroyed the killer tree with a powerful ki blast. Akane cast a disapproving look at such a waste of energy, but did not say anything. As it fell, the brittle trunk smashed to several pieces. One was good for a tombstone. Ranma got all sweaty and huffy while she was cutting a flat space on the front side, enough for the inscription. Then they remembered that they forgot to ask Laeedath the name of the departed one. Ranma shrugged, and proceeded to carve 'RAIDATU' in katakana, placing the four large, rune-like letters vertically, as it is proper for tombstones. Akane added several large rocks to surround the sandy bump, and placed the rusty rifle barrel on top. There was nothing more they could do for the nameless member of the wise women clan. They only had to bring her medallion back to her relatives.

They stood in front of the grave in respectful silence for a few minutes. Akane even apologized to the spirit of the departed for the burial not being as thorough as it should be. Then the girls turned around and went towards the pyramid. The crimson glow of sunset was fading quickly, turning the plain into a featureless gray field. They ran, giving every tree a wide berth, not inclined to bet their lives on their ability to not mistake the species of a tree in the darkness.

The closer to the pyramid, the more trees were there. Ranma was positive these were the man-eating kind. A kilometer from the transport node the trees became so dense that the girls had to slow down and search for a non-threatened space in this labyrinth. The distances between the trees were still too great to tree-hop.

"Shit," Ranma swore. "I just knew, I had to search harder, to find the secret of these monks who knew how to stand on a floating reed."

"Aren't these all tall tales?" Akane replied doubtfully, more concerned about the lack of sticks. The hairs on the back of her neck were crawling from the anticipation of her foot falling through the ground, followed by a few seconds of mortal terror, of knowing that you are already done for, then convulsions... She shuddered. It could be even worse. Ranma could fall for a trap, leaving her crying over the lifeless body.

Then she remembered suddenly that there were no traps near the trunk! Taking a short run, she ignored Ranma's warning shout and made a huge leap. She landed next to the trunk of one killer tree.

"Raitsui Dan! (Thunder Hammer Strike)"

The ki blast that hit the tree was enough to knock down a bull. The tree hummed, shivering from the force of the blast and shedding some of its brittle branches. But it remained standing.

"Raitsui Dan!" Akane wasn't about to give up. She put thrice more power into her technique this time. The ball of charged air came out thrice as big. It hit the tree — thin, well anchored with its roots — and flowed around it, like a tidal wave passing around an impenetrable rock. The trunk emitted a long creaking noise, there was some debris falling down Akane's collar, but that was all.

Akane glared frowningly at the resilient plant. Her idea was crashing down. To break a tree, she'd have to put everything she had into the blast. She'll wear out too soon! A half-dozen, maybe a dozen trees, and she'll be like a wrung-out rag. But they had to hurry!

Gritting her teeth, Akane turned around to look at the redhead. The other girl was standing there with her arms crossed, a pointed skepticism writ on her face. He didn't have any trouble breaking a tree! Am I so much weaker? Akane turned back to glare at the tree. Nothing like that, she realized. Ranma just made his more concentrated. While the more power I put in mine, the bigger it comes out. And still useless. What could I do? One needs months of training to learn concentrating energy like that... Wait, what if I try like this? She stepped closer, and imitated the motions of the technique. Her open palms stopped almost touching the trunk. Yes, this should work. Ki won't have time to expand, the energy will be all put to work. Now, easy...

"Raitsui Dan!"

Akane was thrown back by the recoil for more than a meter, her boots leaving furrows in the ground. Her palms were buzzing like she tried to slap a steel ingot. But the tree fared much worse. The point-blank ki blast breaking it, it let out a long, sufering creak, then crashed down, breaking its thin, hanging branches with sharp cracks. How come the wind haven't toppled them all if they are so brittle? Akane took a running start on the downed tree trunk, and leaped, reaching the next one easily. The parasitic trees were much taller than they were wide, some thirty meters in height.

"Oh, I see!" Ranma approved as she made a mouthpiece with her palms. "But land on the tree the next time, all right? Just in case!" She repeated her wife's maneuver, grabbing a stick as she did so. But she slammed into the rough trunk at the end of her arch, letting out a muffed 'oof'. "A koala!" she mumbled with no reason, still hanging there, even hugging the tree tighter, to Akane's puzzlement.

"Bakusai Tenketsu! (Blasting Weak Point)"

The explosion left Ranma practically untouched, while leaving a sizable crater in the opposite side of the tree.

"It's safer this way," the redhead explained as she jumped down to the ground and started shaking her right hand that suffered a few splinters. "You aren't thrown back. There's no guarantee there'd be no traps near the trunk the next time. She aimed, then kicked sharply at the tree with a loud shout. The tree stood there for a moment, contemplating to fall or not to fall, and groaning noisily. Then it collapsed. "Let's go." Ranma bent down to grab her stick. "At such a rate we—" The stick fell from her uncooperative fingers. "Wha...?"

Akane stared at the other girl, a wave of nauseatingly intense horror washing over her. The right hand. Ranma lifted it to her face, it was hard to see in the dark. The small splinters that got under her skin... Her fingers weren't responding, muscles went stiff. Ranma hurried to pluck all the splinters out with her good hand.

"Don't fret," she proclaimed, her voice wavering. "The dose was most surely not big enough..." She started rubbing at her paralyzed arm.

Akane was panicking. Should she do that? Shouldn't they apply a tourniquet? Or suck the poison out first?

An anguished minute passed. Then another one. Rana managed to twitch her little finger. She hopped on one foot, testing her balance.

"That was close..."

Akane wasn't sure who of them said that.

"Bakusai Tenketsu is out," concluded Ranma. "I'm such a moron I didn't figure it earlier. The branches hang low, the first large herbivore would... Well, maybe it's a trap exactly for them. Whatever. Anyway, we'll have to rely on your Raitsui Dan. I'm one-handed for a while. We'll just be checking the ground behind you." She grabbed the stick with her good hand.

They went on. After the tenth tree - or was it the twentieth one? Akane wasn't feeling her hands anymore, these turned into a solid lump of buzzing, pulsating pain. But there was a long way ahead, and lots of trees to topple. She was repeating stubbornly in her mind that a little pain wouldn't kill her.

She stood almost touching the tree with a mechanical motion learned by rote, waiting while Ranma checks the ground behind her...

"..nough. Are you hearing me? Enough!" The redhead was shaking her by her shoulder. "They are growing densely enough here, let's go by the branches!"

Their way through the tree-tops was a memorable experience. One girl had her hands concussed, stiff and barely feeling. The other one had one working arm. They were swinging from branch to branch like two masochistic, crippled gibbons, while the brittle branches kept breaking under their weight. Thankfully, it wasn't for long. Near the pyramid, the trees were packed so densely that one could simply jump across thicker branches where the crowns intertwined.

There was a road paved with stone coming from the pyramid entrance. It was overgrown with grass, a narrow track left by wagon wheels barely visible. All the man-eating trees at the sides of the road were cut down for a half hundred meters in each direction. The stumps had time to rot and crumble.

"Makes you wonder," Ranma commented darkly. "It's unlikely that the old hag set us up. Meaning, she is kept ignorant by someone else. Someone who profits from using this node while all the other tribes keep thinking there are especially dire dinosaurs living here." She rubbed at her arm, the ability to move it was returning. "I understand that one's own village's well-being is always prevalent and stuff, but... I think, this poison is purely paralytic. I never stopped feeling with that arm. So, unless your heart stops...

"Then those trapped are being eaten alive, fully conscious?" Akane's eyes rounded from the horrifying realization. "Those people, who distribute the false rumors, are scum!" She shuddered, and Ranma couldn't tell if it was from terror or from a desire to wring a neck or two.

"It's possible that this alien crap wasn't introduced here by accident," Ranma added with venom. "Growing only around the portal, the closer, the denser... I wouldn't want to go through the world these trees originate from."

They opened the portal straight to the roof of the house where Laeedath lived. Knocking perfunctorily, Ranma let herself in. Then she froze. Akane bumped into her, looked over her shoulder, and froze as well.

Ami was sitting at the table, dressed in a green woolen dress. She was busily working a medallion. The fingers of her right hand were practically fluttering. She held a forgotten chunk of bread with cheese in her left.

"Ami-chan?" Akane asked with confusion as she pulled her own medallion out by the chain, to make sure it was still there. "I thought your quota was over-drafted?"

The elder Laeedath said nothing, but her eyes were full of such painful longing, that Ranma involuntarily put the mystery aside, going straight to business: "We... found her. Here." She held the inert medallion out to the old woman.

The old woman's hands trembled as she accepted it. "How did she die?" Her voice was dull, tense.

"She—" Ranma faltered. She was feeling a strong aversion to telling the truth. "Quickly. There's a man-eating tree, your foot falls into a barbed pit trap, the poison is strong and quick. Then dinosaurs finished..."

"So that's how." The elder Laeedath opened the medallion. It woke to life as it hadn't been lying for twenty years exposed to the elements. She sat there for a long time, looking through the screen with unseeing eyes. Then she collected herself, and entered a short command. The medallion beeped, becoming for a brief moment mirror-like, as if it was chromed, instead of coppery-reddish. Her own medallion erupted with a short, annoying melody. "It's over," said the old woman. "Granddaughter, come here." She entered an another command, this one a bit longer.

Ahstat entered at once, like she was listening right beyond the curtain. She approached slowly, with trepidation. Ranma got a feeling she's seeing some sort of sacred ritual. The young woman accepted the medallion with both hands, like some treasure. The mechanism beeped, all-too ordinarily, at the odds with the solemnity of the moment. Old woman's one erupted with an annoying, corny martial music. Ahstat put the medallion around her neck — slowly, still with trepidation. Then the old and the young embraced each other, and just stood there like that for almost a minute in silence.

Akane felt very awkward: she and Ranma were witnessing something deeply personal.

(シーンブレイク)

"Ami-chan, wasn't your quota over-drafted?" Akane asked again, as soon as she put the other girl down on the roof, away from prying ears. "And where did the second interactor come from?"

"Don't worry," Ami reassured her. "When you found the token, our quota became technically unlimited for any applications related to the portals. Zero cost to open, zero per second."

"Cool," approved Ranma.

"But that's only while one of us holds at least one token," Ami hurried to clarify. "Concerning this medallion... I grabbed at the opportunity co create myself... No,it's not an interactor here. There could be only one per the three of us. It's a portal controller, its functions are very limited. You can control the portals, read the encyclopedia—"

"That doesn't make it less cool," Ranma reassured her. "I'm sure you'll succeed even with this one, given time... By the way, let's swap, shall we? We need it only to open portals—"

"No," Ami interrupted her. "You'll need the extended map functionality that this one doesn't... What am I saying. The most important thing, this portal controller does have one function," she held her medallion up, displaying its screen, "that your standard issue interactor doesn't have. There's an inappropriate use for this function, that allows me to observe living organisms addressing them by DNA. Here, watch this."

"That's great," Ranma said as she leaned closer to look at the screen. There was a mess of hair-thin black lines moving on the greenish glowing background. "Hey, it's me!" The meaningless lines suddenly turned out to be a line art, like a manga with bad hatchwork. She realized she was seeing a bird-eye panorama centered on herself, Akane and Ami. "I can even see my pigtail!" She lifted her eyes to stare at Ami. "So we could find Usagi like this? Great! Us going for that token had already paid off."

"It's not that simple... Well, not really. There are purely technical difficulties. But I still need her genetic material. The Tsukino residence would be the best place to search for it, so we now go to Tokyo immediately."(note 1) Ami typed something in her medallion, and a portal arch opened behind her, showing the mirror hall. "Let's go. I was only waiting for you." There was an another arch open already, not visible from their position but causing a strong wind to blow out of the portal, flapping Ami's hair. The distant noise of the big city was distant but instantly recognizable amidst the quiet town.

"Wait!" exclaimed Akane. "We didn't tell the granny the entire truth!"

"Don't worry," Ranma reassured her. "She is experienced, she'll add two and two somehow."

"Come on, people are getting nervous," Ami hurried them. "Besides, we can't keep the portal open for too long."

"How comes, if there are no limits?" Ranma asked with suspicion as she stepped after her through the portal.

"We have them lifted, but the machines that create the portals do have their own limits." Ami walked out to Tokyo through the adjacent arch. "When connecting over such large distances as we did just now, they would overload in a few minutes, forcing an emergency disconnect. I don't want to learn what would happen in such a case." She turned around to make sure that Akane went with them. "Ahs-seven eetaht ashech uschst, close the portal."

"We are friends! Friends!" Akane shouted nervously, addressing the soldiers who were aiming at them from the cover of their sand-bag barricades. "Senshi business!"

"Couldn't you have chosen a, you know, less crowded spot?" Ranma inquired as she looked around the huge construction site stretching in all directions. It turns out, they disembarked inside the big, flat crater left by the demon's portal. Water had been pumped out, thick ridged hoses stretching up and beyond its edges. Further than that, there were wary soldiers of the self-defense force, tanks and machine-gun nests. Further still, there was building machinery working on clearing the ruins.

"You shouldn't just emerge like that, without warning!" a JSDF army officer berated them as he walked up to the girls.

"I'm sorry," Ami replied sheepishly. "This place is a weak spot in the inter-universe barriers. We... couldn't land anywhere else." She cast a look around the hastily erected defences. "It's a good thing you have organized a defensive perimeter here. Any Ahs-user can open portal here, this zone is... already a part of Ahs." Suddenly, she fell silent and started typing in the medallion. "But you have to move the line twenty three meters back. The contaminated zone is wider than this crater, the portal could open behind you!"

"Excuse me, whom I have the honor to talk to...?" the army officer inquired.

"Sailor Mercury, now Mi..." She stammered for a moment, her very nature rebelling against such an open admission. "Mizuno Ami. I need... I need help to organize... I'm sorry, I cannot hold any longer..." Ranma and Akane cast puzzled sidelong glances at such an uncharacteristic behavior. "Hold it for a while! Excuse me, it's urgent!" Throwing her medallion at Akane, she dashed away, beyond the defensive perimeter. She hid behind some tank, there was a flash of blue accompanied with a shout of "Mercury Star Power, Make-Up!" and a... moan of relief? Then Mercury walked out, calm and collected as always. "Wait here, I'll be back soon!" she shouted to the two and bounded away across rooftops, opening her communicator on the run.

"Our magic doesn't work inside this zone," Akane explained to the puzzled army officer as she put the medallion with its chain away in her pocket. To be honest, she was puzzled herself. What an itch had been urging Ami-chan to hurry like that, to the point of fumbling with words? "We have to rely on our martial arts. Well, and on Mercury. I don't know what would we do without her ability to figure everything out."

"I see." The army officer left them alone, to start giving orders. Soon it was noisy around: the soldiers were dragging sandbags, the tanks tracks were clanking as the heavy machines backed away.

"Let's wait then, Miss Talkative." Ranma expropriated a sandbag to sit down on it, cross-legged. She pulled a bag containing the token out from her shirt, opened it, and pulled the orb out. In the normal daylight it turned to be silvery, shining like liquid mercury. "Hm. Well, at least it isn't orange... I suspect we'd better not leave the zone with this thing."

"Why?" Akane asked, surprized.

"Well, it's an important part of Ahs," Ranma explained as she closed one eye shut trying to look through the ball against the sky. "But Ahs kind of ends on the border of this zone. Who knows what would happen if we try to carry it out? Maybe nothing happens. Maybe it unravels like our seifukus here. Or this zone grows to contain it. Or things go boom like that moment when Usagi... In short I'm in no hurry to test it."

"You think so?" Akane looked at the token with new eyes. Till now, she had been perceiving it in a purely positive light, their precious means to save Usagi. But if this thing could be dangerous... She felt ill at ease. "Could..." She shivered slightly. "Could that knight trace us using this token? How do you think?"

"Who knows." Ranma shrugged. "I, myself, would like to know where is he, and what in the hell was he trying to accomplish."

(シーンブレイク)

A short, short-legged, armor-clad figure is floating in some unrecognizable space. There's no clear distinction between up and down. Glowing lines run in all directions disappearing in a multi-colored haze. There are thousands of portals floating around, leading to a vast variety of places, though most show only the starry blackness of deep space.

Turning his head at a signal only he can hear, the knight transfers himself to one particular portal, making no visible effort. There's a conference hall visible on the other side, with several people gathered around a podium, and a crowd of reporters. Photo flashes are going off, bulky television cameras standing in a row on their tripods.

"Oh, so they decided, at long last." The knight gestures the portal to become double-sided. The photo reporters explode in a frenzy of flashes that attenuates the mirror-like curves of his armor, visible through the oval that had appeared suddenly in mid-air. The slick, elongated, visor-less helmet casts glares of reflected light, utterly devoid of expression.

"I'm glad we were able to come to an agreement," the knight begins in a tired voice. However, everyone present hears only the emotion-less voice of the mechanic translation: English is not among the languages he bothered to learn. "Now concerning liaisons. From my side the persons responsible for—"

"You haven't understood," the head of the delegation interrupts him. The imposing man, in his fifties, towers over the tribune, authoritative and unyielding. A wreath of gray hair surrounds his bald head that casts sharp glares of reflected right. "We have gathered here today to declare your demands unacceptable!"

"Excuse me?" Irritation is showing clear in the knight's voice. He crosses his arms. "I thought I made it clear that—"

"The people of the free world will newer bow to such kind of dictate!" The entire world is watching him now with the eyes of many television cameras. Well, what is left of it after the recent, very unfortunate, nuclear missile incident.

"I fail to follow your meaning. Don't you understand what would happen to your planet if you refuse?"

"Baseless, unsubstantiated claims." The orator is confident. If this... alien posed a real threat, he wouldn't be wasting time on words. No, they'd already have an invasion fleet in orbit. It's na?ve to presume that someone having power wouldn't use it. So this humanoid in a hi-tech medieval armor is 'all bark, no bite' as they like to say in the United States. Or, to be exact, as they _liked_·to say when that country was still there. "The British scientists checked everything, there's no threat of ecological catastrophe, not even a slightest sign." Not entirely true. Or, frankly, entirely untrue. But the TV audience doesn't have to know. Besides, what is a couple hundred millions more, compared to what had already happened? Less mouths to feed. The more so that Argentine, South Africa and Australia found themselves not ready for the burden of being superpowers, having become ones so suddenly.

"Your so called scientists don't have a thousandth of my resources." The knight is practically growling, he never had patience for such types. "For the last time, I suggest you to reconsider. There won't be a second chance!"

If they could hear the bared menace in his voice, they'd think twice how to answer. But the sterilized, impersonal translation they hear is deceptive, lulling them into a false sense of safety.

"The UN Charter—" the head of the delegation begins pompously.

"Your UN is currently lies in radioactive ashes," the knight interrupts him. "Together with its head-quarters, New York and the entire Northern hemisphere. I want to hear your own answer, not some worm-eaten dogmas. Your personally, and the other delegates. I was under impression that the persons gathered here are the ones having the power to make decisions in the current situation.

"And we say NO!" thunders the man on the podium.

The delegates approve noisily, playing righteous outrage and staunch recalcitrance. All for the sake of the multitude of television cameras. They'll show that no alien dictator could force his will over the people of the Free World!

The knight emits an unintelligible sound. Alas, his extreme irritation doesn't show in his posture, and the mechanical translation keeps silent. A long silence follows, full of self-esteem from one side, and teeth gnashing from another. Then the knight asks suddenly, in a very kind and caring voice: "So your surname is Zinkerman, you said?"

"Yes, Zinkerman," the head replies in a neutral voice, puzzled and thus wary. Any oddities in politics of this level are fraught with trouble. More so when negotiating with an unknown side. "You should have received a list. Chosen by the people of the Free world, delegates Hughes, Eighinson—"

"Enough!" the knight interrupts, rubbing his hands together. His voice is laden with such a predatory, primeval joy that if the delegates could hear it, their hair would be standing on its ends now. "I happen to have a specialist at hand, who will have a solution. A _final_·solution... Wait there, he'll arrive shortly."

Everyone gathered feels a sickly cold crawling along their spines. These words about a 'final solution'... A coincidence of course, no alien could know the Earth history that well, could he? Many suddenly remember how replaceable they are, the main reason that the real powers that be put them here to play this farce. This makes them feel even more ill at ease.

The knight, meanwhile, pays them no mind, busy working his virtual manipulator. From the side this looks as him weaving complex patterns in the air with his hands.

Suddenly, a portal opens right on the podium. Alarmed, the delegates retreat away. A tall man of athletic build steps into the hall from the portal. He crosses his arms and just stands there silently, casting a dirty look around. The portal closes behind his back.

The delegates recognize the new arrival. They are horrified. One yelps pitifully, another one crawls back on all fours in blind panic. Because, despite the well muscled body, the blond hair and the steel-blue eyes of a true Aryan, he is instantly recognizable. These peculiar features, this slicked sideways bang, this little square of mustache... Even a kid would recognize him instantly.

Some guard panics and shoots. An untraceable arm movement, and the newcomer opens his fist, dropping crushed bullets to the carpet.

"Delegates, you say," the Aryan says with a quiet anger. "Of the _free world_." He fixes his glare on each of them in turn, and his jaw muscles start to tighten. "It wasn't enough for you what you did to my Fatherland."(note 2) His nostrils flare from a barely restrained hatred. His eyes start glowing blue. "It wasn't enough for you to dominate the whole world. Now even on its ruins you—"

"Shoot! Shoot" the head of the delegation screams at the top of his lungs while his colleagues are crawling under the chairs or chewing on their neckties. His voice falters, turning into falsetto. This doesn't really suit his stony face and heroic posture. But he is playing to the end. The guards start shooting erratically, risking to hit the numerous reporters. Bullets are flattening against the Aryan, falling down and littering the carpet.

"_Shoot, shoot,_" he says in German, sneering derisively. A bluish aura lights around him, suffused with lightning bolts. "All the money of the whole world can't help you now!" A pair of ghostly crystalline wings opens behind his back, resembling stylized eagle wings. The blond nightmare begins to rise into the air. "_Because I have returned. And god I am._"

The knight watches his minion picking up steam with all the tenderness of a grandmother watching the antics of her favorite grandchild. Then he closes the portal. The cries of despair were music for his ears, soothing his nerves frayed by conversing with democrats. What a useful addition to the team! It doesn't even have to be a real Zionist conspiracy. It's enough to make it look like one, for him to fly off the handle! Such dedication, such aggression!

"So. This world could be written off as dealt with," the knight concludes with satisfaction. "Now, did I forget something... Oh!" Slapping his armored forehead with a clang, he starts inputting a search command on his virtual manipulator. Soon he finds what he sought. The window portal opening in front of him shows a bird's eye panorama of a savannah with sparse, dry grass and an occasional wide-branching tree.

"Excellent!" he exclaims with satisfaction in his voice, rubbing his armored hands together. "It couldn't be better!" He zooms the view in, bringing the portal closer to the ground to better see a blond figure trudging across this inhospitable landscape.

(シーンブレイク)

Sun was sinking towards the horizon, not as scorching now as it was during the day. But the air still remained intolerably hot. Usagi was barely dragging her feet, suffering from thirst and hunger. She hadn't found any water yet, whick made her think grim thoughts. But even more depressing was the complete, absolute solitude, alien to the very nature of the outgoing girl. Completing her misery, her left shoe tore and now kept falling off her foot. The dry grass here was as soft and inwiting as barbed wire.

Usagi stopped, letting out a sigh that sounded more like a sob. She was dearly missing her friends, but even more she was missing her loved one. Were he here now... She squashed that thought, it would only make her suffering worse in the end. "It's a lesson for you, lazy bunny," she berated herself silently. "Grew used to hanging back while others attack in your stead? Try now to make it alone, for a change!"

Alone... She let out an another sigh. But there is no sense crying when there's no one to listen to you. She couldn't even find solace in hoping that she was stranded somewhere in Africa. Usagi glanced at the twin, red-hot moons glowing dull crimson like a pair of malevolent eyes glaring at her from beyond the darkening sky. She wasn't on Earth anymore. And now her empty stomach was growling again... No, wait.

Usagi lifted her head. There, in front of her, towered a mountain of a beast. Only its eyes were visible, glinting dimly against the black silhouette outlined by sunset. The nape of its neck bulged much higher than Usagi's head.

"Oh, it was _your_·stomach growling!" she exclaimed with relief.

The beast continued staring at her. Then it licked its chops, noisily.

Usagi gulped.

(シーンブレイク)

October 6, 2012. Translated November 3, 2012.

(シーンブレイク)

**Author's notice:** After this chapter, there will be a long — I mean, really long — pause, as I continue working on the rest of this story _non-linearly_. The rest of the story is roughly half written, as I keep expanding incomplete chapters, adding here and there. Unfortunately, as of November 2012, the next four chapters (20 to 23) still exist purely as a concept. So I have to write them from scratch, then translate them, and only then my release rate will skyrocket. You can see my progress at my FanFiction?net profile page. I update it two to four times a month.

**Author's notes:**

**1**  
In the anime episode 36, Kunzite of Dark Kingdom tried to identify Sailor Moon by DNA, after he got his hands on some of her hair.

**2**  
Did you expect him to be fair and objective? Even in the slightest? No way. If you could resurrect him, he'd tell you a mind-screwing tale about the Jews being the true villains, doing unspeakable things to _him_·(and his homeland), while he lived and died a hero, fighting the world-encompassing evil. Double standards? No, it's something more. Double standards cry in the corner here, green with envy.


	20. Grim Up North

This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

**Your Destiny Is Annulled**

**Arc Three  
Obstacle Race**

**Chapter 20,  
Grim Up North**

"Guys!" Ranma yelled merrily as she leaned out of the portal. "Come here, we'll give you a ride home!"

"At last!" Venus detransformed into Minako. She started striding towards the portal, swaying slightly when her bare feet made contact with a more sharp pebble.

Others followed her example, voicing their approval noisily. They were fed up with sitting in this middle of nowhere waiting for who knows what.

"When we get home," Minako drawled dreamily as she approached the portal, "The first thing I'll do will be taking a norm—"

She was whirled around sharply, there was a sound of cloth ripping, and the blond fell flat on the hall floor, partially sliding out of her jeans. Ranma closed her eyes shut instantly: she remembered that the other girl didn't have panties on her. A torn off button clattered on the floor.

"What's wrong?"

"What happened?"

"Minako-chan!"

The girls clamored, there was a rush of hurried footsteps, then a weak but resounding slap not unlike that from a rubber band. Rei's yelp of surprise was followed by someone gasping in pain. Ranma opened her eyes, looking around for danger. Rei was standing awkwardly just inside the hall, in the process of making a step. Makoto was outside, stumbling back while bending forward to clutch at her solar plexus. Minako was face down, her pants pulled down like she caught with her left pocket on something. The round buttocks shone softly, making Ranma avert her eyes in annoyance. There was no time for distractions, something weird had just happened!

"Stop!" Ami reacted at last. "It doesn't let your henshin wands through!" She pointed at the Mars henshin wand lying at the threshold.

"I... ungh... can feel that" the hunched down Makoto squeezed out. She took a sensitive hit at her solar plexus when she ran into her henshin wand that was tucked away in her cleavage.

"Just great," Rei grumbled as she bent down to grab her wand.

"Is this some sort of mockery?" Akane was indignant. Pulling her own henshin wand out, she put it through the portal and back, without any resistance. "My wand passes."

"Well, mine doesn't," Haruka stated, tapping her wand against an invisible barrier.

"What the demon is going on?" Ranma voiced everyone's puzzlement as she put her wand through. "We all had been going through portals many times, and nothing like this ever happened!"

Ami frowned, tapping keys. Then she pulled her wand out and put it through the portal without a slightest resistance.

"Let me guess," Ranma suggested. "That's because of the token, right? There are portals, and then there are portals?"

Ami stood working the medallion for about three minutes. Then she confirmed, looking like she needed headache medicine sorely: "You guess is right. The rights escalation led to... a change in filters. In fact, all the henshin wands, except the three belonging to us, are now treated as manifestations of aggressive environment. Like concentrated acid or objects possessing high kinetic energy. I don't know yet how to circumvent this limitation..." She rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "Give me a couple hours and I—"

"Don't," Haruka interrupted her forcefully. "Focus on saving Usagi, we'll get there on our own. Right, girls?"

"Of course!" Minako replied first, with a sincere enthusiasm. "It's our Earth. Its northern wastes, at that, not some jungle with crocodiles. And we are ourselves again!" She stroked her henshin wand in her pocket without thinking. "We'll get there in a jiffy!"

"It's Siberia, with bears," Rei corrected her. "But other than that, you are right. How many thousands kilometers do we have to go?"

"You only have to get to a nearest town with airport," Ami noted.

"Oh gods, no." Makoto paled.

"Are you sure?" Ami asked. "It would be easier for me to focus on searching Usagi, but—"

"No 'buts'," Michiru rejected flatly. "Our situation is but a petty annoyance. Work, don't let yourself be distracted."

"Then, let's get ready. I think half a hour would be enough," Ranma suggested. "Me and Akane need to prepare for hiking too. Now, with limits gone—"

"You'll be sorry," Akane warned her, "If we stumble again on a world where ki doesn't work. You'll get on my nerves with your whining if we have to lighten our backpacks again."

"So what?" The redhead shrugged. "Is that a reason to give up? I don't think so." She then turned to look at the girls chilling beyond the portal. "Come on, choose who goes to Tokyo with us to get supplies while the rest watches over their henshin wands."

"We don't have time for shopping," Akane reminded. "And we are out of money."

"Damn..." Ranma took a look around. "Hey, let's task the soldiers with this. They have to have some field supplies."

Thus, Ranma and Akane went early. They turned the self-defense forces into an upended anthill, making many a lieutenant run around. But they got their rope, an inflatable boat, a couple of sturdy, intact backpacks and enough nominally-edible MREs to last a week. The two said their hasty good-bye, then disappeared in the portal.

After that, Makoto, Haruka and Rei went shopping. They weren't in a particular hurry, after all. Ami would open the portal for them. She stayed in the contaminated zone, creating a flurry of activity. Soon the soldiers were looking even more like an upended anthill. They were running to and fro, bringing the equipment she requested. It looked like they'd appropriate a personal modular cabin for her needs.

The shopping trip did not take long. The girls only had to traverse half a thousand kilometers off-road. In their Senshi forms, with some effort, they could simply run that distance in a day. But in the light of the last trends, no one wanted to rely on their magic alone. They were buying mostly clothes. In case a certain accident repeats, or they have to blend in playing tourists. Most shops in the neighborhood were closed, so the girls had to rely on that same "Surbaibasu Kouneru" they used to shop before the northern battle. Its owner, a survivalist nut, looked all too happy because of the disaster going around. Made one wonder why he haven't been asked to close. The choice of goods was matching: the girls had to don baggy camo suits of gray tones. They unanimously refused the heavy boots with ribby soles: how could they buy these for Minako and Michiru without a try-on? They chose padded nylon boots with Velcro fasteners, to the shopkeeper's consternation. To complete the masquerade, the girls bought backpacks and very little camping gear. The survivalist was disappointed with them, but they weren't intending to use this stuff seriously anyway.

Returning to the zone, they found to their displeasure that Ami got distracted from her work anyway, to prepare a set of maps and instructions for them. The departing three began refusing, insisting that she stays and that they would be fine. Everything to return her to the primary task. Ami didn't give up, though. She went into the mirror hall with them, all the while making marks on the map and explaining the road to them. They barely dissuaded her from following them to the other side.

Then they managed at last to send her on her way. The portal closed finally, cutting them off in the northern barrens.

"Honestly!" exclaimed Rei. "You'd think it would be a disaster if we got lost here for a week or two!"

"We'd be better off without any maps!" Minako added, curling her bare feet on the freezing ground: she went into the antimagic zone to meet them. "It would be a real adventure then! But now, knowing that just a couple hundred kilometers to the south there's a highway and civilization... Feh, boring."

"Tokyo could be attacked without us," Neptune reminded, calling from beyond the edge of the zone.

"So what?" The blond wasn't giving up. "Mercury is there, with so many soldiers that they substitute for the usual crowds. If it's anything less than Gojira, they'll flatten it in no time. That's it, if it doesn't hide at the first sight of them."

"What if it is something serious?" Haruka tested her determination.

"If it's something serious..." Minako's face turned grim. "We'd be useless anyway. Without Moon and Sol..."

"I'm thinking along these lines," Haruka agreed suddenly. "All right, here is your clothing, get—"

"Ooh, you didn't even forget panties!" The blond exclaimed in joy as she shed her blouse and sagging jeans devoid of button. "Brr!" Shivering naked in the frosty air, she donned the camo suit with incredible speed, only slowing slightly when she adjusted the bra. Neptune only managed to detransform into Michiru and get rid of her makeshift bikini when the blond began pulling boots on, fully dressed. "What?" she responded to her fiends' incredulous stares. "I just got fed with going commando. Not to mention this..." She made a sweeping gesture around, pointing at the lifeless black mountain ridges covered with strips of snow. "Are you sure we aren't displaced in time? It doesn't _look_·like summer." She pulled her hat down.

"Absolutely," Michiru affirmed as she finished dressing.

"Then how should the winter feel here?" Rei asked, shivering.

"We'd better not know," said Haruka. "All right. Now, as everyone is ready—"

"By the way, how is Hotaru doing?" Minako asked as she adjusted her hair flowing down from under the hat.

"We discussed this with Saturn," Michiru replied, demonstrating the communicator on her wrist. "We think she should try teleporting one more time."

"Why?" asked Rei. "Isn't that too dangerous? As I understand it, she is on some Arctic island. Wouldn't it be better to evacuate her using a helicopter? Or she couldn't stay Saturn any longer?"

"There's one little complication," Haruka said. "The island... How to phrase it..."

"Is not strictly existing," Michiru finished in her stead. "We aren't sure if it has an unnoticeability spell put on it, or is it simply out of phase with reality. But its location is known as open sea."

"An uncharted island?" Rei was surprised. "It must be really tiny, then?"

"No, it's half a hundred kilometers across," Michiru corrected. "Which leaves us with only one explanation: the island is enchanted. Now, at the end of the twentieth century, even a lone rock would not be missed."

"In short," Haruka finished, "sending a helicopter would be unwise. The pilot would either find an endless expanse of waves—"

"An endless expanse of ice fields," Michiru corrected.

"..or, less probably, will attract attention to the... let's call it the less obvious side of universe. For now, all events... All visible events showing that Earth is but a part of the bigger cosmos were limited to Japan.

"We don't need," Michiru added, "the rest of the world figuring out that this concerns them as well and... _raising activity_.

"Wait!" Makoto exclaimed. "The island that doesn't exist... Could it be that place where we...? But the D point was at the Northern pole!"

"That I cannot tell," replied Haruka. "We haven't been there with you."

"It could be," Minako proclaimed. "I remember my surprise at seeing mountains on the horizon, supposedly at the Northern pole. I thought Luna mixed things up and sent us to the South pole... Why are you looking at me like this? Even a baby would remember: there's deep ocean at the North pole. No land. There's Antarctic Continent at the South pole. Ice is thick like mountain, no sea..." She cast a look across her dumbfounded comrades, then added, less sure this time: "Also, polar bears only live in Antarctic, while penguins only live near the North pole. They never meet, so drawing them next to each other is epitome of ignorance... Aint't I right?"

The girls let out a breath of relief. This was their Minako, all right. Not some impostor.

"Mina-chan," Rei lectured her. "It's penguins who live in Antarctic, the bears live in the north."

"Oh..." the blond scratched the back of her head sheepishly. "Ha-ha! Right!"

"If it is a ghost island," Makoto suggested, "could it move? Like Flying Dutchman?"

"Sounds reasonable," Rei agreed. "I don't see why not, when the island is enchanted so heavily it couldn't even be found."

"Then we should warn Saturn to be careful," Makoto added with worry. "Dark Kingdom lies under that place. We have ruined it thoroughly, of course, but it have been restored once when Galaxia resurrected Jadeite. Who knows if some surviving youma is hiding there."

"Of course," Haruka agreed. "We will call her."

"These boots hang loosely," Minako complained. "I'd chafe my feet. Flimsy, too."

"This is just a masquerade," Rei chastised her. "Or are you planning of running all these two hundred kilometers in civilian?"

"Oh, never mind then," Minako replied airily. "Are we far enough from the warped zone? Venus star power, Make-Up!"

The rest followed her example.

"I wonder, it happens that there are five of us," Mars noted, stomping her red shoe, which looked incongruous against the wild stone. "Exactly one sentai team."

"Mars-chan!" Venus exclaimed in exaggerated surprise. "Aren't you, by chance, offering yourself for the leading role, what with you being the red ranger and stuff?"

"Anyway!" Mars cleared her throat forcefully. "Don't you think it would be prudent to find our bearings using the map first?"

"Let's see." Uranus pulled the map from wherever all carried things disappear to during the transformation. "We are here." She pointed at a thick pencil cross mark.

"Whoa." Minako leaned over her shoulder. "Boy, do these mountains stretch far... But there should be a lot of rivers around." She squinted, trying to read labels. "Hmm, everything is in English. Burugu... Byrgha... eeghalakh...? Ugh. These Russians surely have a weird language."(note 1)

"I suggest we go West first." Haruka traced her finger across the map. "Then we reach a valley that cuts through most of the mountain group, running South to North."

(シーンブレイク)

"Yes, of course... Thank you. I will be careful... Good luck traveling... Bye." Saturn closed her communicator. "So this is how it looks, the underworld entrance." She lifted her gaze towards jagged mountaintops. The dark ridge was shielding her from the low polar sun, creating general impression of menacing looming. Snow covering the closer, flatter slopes was marred with volcanic ash. "I wonder if it was fate that lead me here..."

The girl started climbing up the mountain, swift and weighless. Her boots were barely leaving an imprint in the snow.

(シーンブレイク)

After meandering a little with the lifeless valley, the five Senshi came out to a river flowing through a bigger valley. Well, calling it a river would be exaggeration: water flowed between gravel deposits covering the river-bed, at times detectable only by gurgling. But at last, there was some vegetation here. The landscape wasn't lifeless any longer. The flinty sides of the black ridges were covered with a carpet of brownish moss and creeping bushes — a thin splattering of color along the very bottom. There were even some spruces along the river, sparce and emaciated.

The valley was cutting through ridge after ridge, stretching almost exactly north to south.

"Down the river now?" Venus asked.

"No, our path lies to the south." Uranus pointed into distance, where haze was painting the black ridges deep blue. "To the north of these mountains, there lie endless swamplands. There are no cities, nor roads there. Well, at least no ones big enough to get mentioned on this map. It goes on like this right up to the Bering strait."

"Oh, then we go south," the blond agreed, envisioning herself trudging through a swamp in her orange mary janes"

(シーンブレイク)

Jagged, broken spires were rising to the height more than a kilometer. Saturn looked back over her shoulder. Behind her, steep slope was stretching down, to give way to the snowy plain of frozen ocean stretching to the horizon. But there was some sort of subtle wrongness in this picture, irritating the eyes like a movement that could only be seen with one's peripheral vision. The little girl turned back forward decisively, to stride into a cleft between two spires. The black walls grew closer, looming ponderously with sharp edges of freshly broken basalt. She was hopping lightly from rock to rock, following the meandering rift. But then there was an opening, at last.

Saturn cautiously walked up to the edge. There was a huge caldera stretching before her, its walls falling down in sharp steps. The mountain wall that circled the crater was all but disappearing in the haze, sun hanging over its much lower southern side. The girl leaned over the edge and stared down.

The water filling the crater stayed unnaturally calm, like a dark mirror, not even a crumb of ice marring its surface. It yawned like a bottomless pit. The irritating double vision returned, threefold stronger. Saturn felt like she was looking not at the lake a thousand meters below her, but into a murky, formless abyss that was both closer and deeper.

"So that's your form, Dark Kingdom," Saturn uttered quietly. "A closed pocked in reality. A trap without exit..." She closed her eyes, listening, without fear of the edge. "I hear you." She opened her eyes, reaching sideways. "I see now. The spell is shattered, but still holds strong... Maybe... Yes, I was correct. You are stuck here." Her eyes filling with determination, a halberd with curved double blade formed in her outstretched hand. "So unfair. The spell would have faded long ago, sending this island into unbeing, if not for your own suffering feeding it..." She took the halberd with both hands, twirling it a couple times as if the massive metallic weapon had the weight of a feather. Then she muttered under her breath: "Now careful, I wouldn't want to kill myself too... Well, the spell is barely holding as it is. I hope papa and mama won't learn about this..."

Holding her head high, she shouted loudly: "Hear me, Onkylons! Hear me, my compatriots who fell at the hands of Jadeite! It's time for you to go on! The Wheel of Samsara is awaiting you! So let's push all together! Let's break your chains, so that you could continue on the cycle of death and rebirth!"

She stood there listening for a few moments. Then, with a sharp motion, she brought the halberd down — as if cleaving the eerily unnatural landscape in front of her.

The heavy, oppressive silence gave way to another, perfect silence. There was no place left for the very concept of sound. Reality shuddered, then collapsed into itself, leaving an emptiness filled with a distinct feeling that there was never an island to begin with. Accompanied by what felt like thousands of released spirits sighing in relief, the caldera ceased to be.

"I did it," the girl said with relief, letting her halberd disappear. The power of Silence, even a small fraction of it, was not to be trifled with. Saturn had been risking when she called forth the final purification, after which there should be no one left alive, be they a man or an alien god. Including her, who initiated The End of Everything. It wasn't intended to be used like this, at a thousandth of its true power. But she did it. The island was no more, while Saturn was still alive and well, and...

The sound returned, with a barely audible whisper of wind driving occasional ice sheet across the waves.

A kilometer below her feet.

Saturn yelped, regaining her weight. The onrushing air pushed resiliently against her face, growing stronger. Her tiny skirt lifted up, fluttering, her short hair streaming up. Saturn panicked, twisting awkwardly. But all she achieved was that she was falling head-first now, the long ribbons of her back bow fluttering like a comet tail. Her hair was getting in her eyes, obscuring her vision.

"Mommyeeeeee!" A seahawk passing by jerked away from the floundering figure that onrushed suddenly from above, to recede then as quickly bellow, leaving a shriek trail. The bird stared after the strange human. Was it seeing things...? Well, anyway, the irritating feeling that always followed it in this part of the sea was gone at last.

(シーンブレイク)

After half an hour of intensive running they reached what was the blue-tinged faraway just a short while ago. While the Senshi don't possess some super running speed — not when compared to cheetah anyway — they could move across rough terrain faster than any land animal or vehicle: quickened reflexes — three to five times, by Mercury's estimate — plus extra balance allowing to run across gravel fields on high heels. Thanks to all this, they could run up the mountain almost as fast as on the flat ground. A good thing, too: they had to keep away from the river. The creeping bushes there were amazingly sturdy and grabby, posing a significant obstacle. No one of the five girls had high boots. They had to run along the valley sides, following all ups and downs as it cut through a perpendicular ridge after ridge.

Luckily to them, the river faded away gradually, the vegetation disappearing with it. They were surrounded again by lifeless black slopes with occasional strips of snow. Their path started climbing up. The valley kept growing smaller, then turned aside. The girls continued in a straight line: with their strength, running upwards wasn't much of a chore. They passed over a ridge, then over the next one. The next one after that was crowned with a small glacier. Scaling it included enjoying a breathtaking view from what felt like the top of the world. After that, their path started winding down. The mountains were growing smaller. Small streams emerged, flowing down their valleys. With the streamlets, the much despised vegetation returned, crawling up the slopes in brownish spots. After crossing an uncounted ridge, the girls found a wide, flat valley completely overgrown with the trice damned creeping bushes. The river was gurgling merrily southwards, but they decided unanimously to cross it perpendicularly, making a small zig-zag. Then they climbed back to the bald mountains. The mountains were low here, the valleys barely half a kilometer from ridge crest to ridge crest, meandering chaotically. The streamlets were gathering into small rivers flowing south.

The girl kept running for some twenty minutes more, cutting straight, down the slopes and up the ridges again. The mountains grew gradually even lower, becoming rounder. And becoming overgrown all over with these creeping, clingy bushes durable like steel wire.

"Let's take a break," Mars suggested after they descended into a valley covered with even thicker vegetation. The raven-haired Senshi spent the last dozen minutes trying to find a fitting expletive for the obnoxious plants, which should not be too vulgar for a Sailor Senshi. That proved to be a difficult task.

"We could simply walk for a while," suggested Neptune.

"That would make no difference," disagreed Mars. "Our Senshi forms have too high a running to walking speed ratio. As far as I remember, it's seven to twelve times. So we can stay and rest." She sat on a moss-covered boulder.

"Wait!" exclaimed Venus. "I think I heard some voices!" She pointed behind them.

"Let's go!" Jupiter replied, about to dash. But then, voices reached again, from the front this time, and more clear.

"Let's masquerade as tourists?" Neptune suggested, listening intently.

"Yes, we need to check," Uranus agreed as she detransformed into Haruka. "We can always transform, but our masquerade is better checked here, far in the wild."

"Great!" Venus exclaimed, shedding her Senshi form. "But we don't know Russian anyway."

"What could tourists be doing here?" Mars objected indignantly. She was vehemently opposed to the idea, but detransformed anyway, after the others. "In this middle of— Kyieeee!" Forgetting in the heat of discussion about this particular feature of detransforming, she found herself sitting with her bare ass on a very, _very_·cold boulder. The warm clothing returned, but she was already in the process of jumping to her feet.

"Which way?" The blond asked with enthusiasm.

And then, suddenly, a guy stumbled onto their group: the landscape here was so uneven that an elephant would be able to sneak up on you.

The guy, clad in grayish-green shirt and trousers of recognizable color tucked into dirty boots, froze at first, dumbfounded by the sight of five strangers. Then he saw cute girls behind the gray camo suits, his face blooming with a smile. He exclaimed something merry. Then she shouted something long, turning to the left.

"And how are you planning to communicate?" Rei quipped at Minako.

"Hello!" the blond shouted in proper English: the guy was standing a bit too far for a normal talk. "We are tourists!" She smiled.

"Pure genius," Rei commented, all the while inconspicuously studying the guy. He looked thin at the first glance, but his movements betrayed strength and energy. He didn't look like a tourist to her. A local, then? And who, again, had been telling that these parts were uninhabited?

Meanwhile, two middle-aged men emerged from the direction the guy was shouting in. Both carrying guns. One carried a common hunting two-barrel shotgun, another one held something akin to an over-grown assault rifle with bulky curved magazine. These two looked tense, but after seeing that they were facing girls, the men relaxed. They chastised their younger partner in a friendly manner, then talked to him in length about something. Then they kind of saluted the girls, and turned back. Have they introduced themselves? Do tell. The language wasn't sounding like anything familiar.

The guy addressed the girls, trying to explain something. Minako tried talking to him in English, but she only got something like "no yungleesh". Probably. Seeing the lack of progress, the guy started gesturing to follow him.

Seeing her friends hesitate, Rei approached the guy and started walking side to side with him. His smiles growing wider, he started telling her something non-stop. She carefully kept upwind of him. Yuck, do they ever wash in this syberia? At least once a year?

The rest of the girls, lacking a better choice, followed the two. On their way, they met the two formerly seen men busy carving some animal, their guns set aside. The men waved at the guy, grinned at the girls, and turned back to their messy business.

"I don't get it," said Makoto. "Are they tourists or hunters? These parts should be uninhabited."

"Judging by the map, there are no villages, no roads," replied Haruka. "But who could say for homesteads and dirt tracks? Our map is quite large-scale."

"Why is he leading us parallel to the river?" Minako doubted. "If he leads us to their camp, it should be at the river. It's always easier to make camp beside a river, right?"

Truly, the smiling guy led them in a roundabout route, taking to the left, away from the river. Rei kept smiling carefully in return: there was still something strange about him.

Along the way, some sort of dirty hobo jumped out of the folds of the landscape, waving his arms agitatedly. But their escort barked something fiercely, making the hobo disappear backing away and bowing deeply. The guy smiled a bit wider, commenting the event for the girls in a jovial tone.

Rei didn't see anything unusual with this: after all, she had scolded Yuichiro the same way many times, the unshaven oaf. But Minako and Michiru exchanged glances. With the latter casting a long look to the right, where the river could be glimpsed through the sparse, emaciated spruces.

The smiling guy led the girls to a campfire hidden by the bends of a small gully. There they were met by yet another man, a thick black stubble making him look like the bottom of his face was dipped into dark gray paint. Exchanging a few words with the smiling guy, he started smiling at the girls, gesturing for them to sit at the campfire.

"Well, looks like our masquerade passed the check," noted Makoto.

"Let's go then," Minako insisted unexpectedly, strangely forcefully.

"Right now?" Haruka asked in disbelief. "That would be impolite."

"Guys," Minako began airily, with a silly smile. "I think—"

"What a surprise," Rei quiped venomously. This 'dumb-blondah-style' was irritating her mightily, like waving a red cloth in front of a bull. "Since we started this, we should respond to the hospitality." She walked up to the campfire, turned around and kneeled down at a free spot, her left side to her comrades.

The unshaven man said something approving, slapping Rei on the shoulder. Too familiarly for her tastes, which made her instantly dislike him.

"Rei-chan," Minako began, in a voice usually reserved for small children. Which made the raven-haired girl grind her teeth, a wave of imprudent stubbornness rising. "You misunderstand this—"

"Nice to meet you," Rei said, not listening to her and bowing to the two men at the campfire. The language barrier is not an obstacle to acting politely. Even when you positively dislike one of your conversation partners.

"Rei-san," Michiru addressed her in a calm, serene even, voice. "We have enough evidence to suspect that our welcoming hosts are in fact a gang of illegal gold-diggers. There, at the river, they have—"

"What?" Makoto all but jumped up, looking instantly in the direction of the river. A useless gesture considering the gully side was blocking the perspective completely. "Are you serious? The Jakuza?"

"Could you be quieter?" hissed Minako. "Less obvious? I'm trying to..."

The unshaven one poured tea into an aluminum cup. Then, to Rei's shock, he poured vodka there. Then he started offering it to her insistently, all but pushing it into her hands. When she refused, he commented rudely, making the smiling guy laugh so hard he had to hold onto his sides.

"Who do you think I am!" Rei fumed, jumping to her feet. Well, trying to. The unshaven man pulled her by her arm sharply, and she plopped back into the kneeling position. The cup clattered on the rocks splashing the vodka-laced tea around.

"Rei-chan!" exclaimed Minako.

"That's it!" Rei jerked her arm free, jumping onto her feet. Backing away from the unshaven man, she pulled her henshin wand out. "Mars—"

Something pressed into her side sharply. Her danger sense blared, making her fall silent and freeze. Rei cautiously glanced to that side. The something turned out to be a sawed-off shotgun. The guy kept smiling as if nothing was happening, but his eyes were disgustingly empty now. He'd shoot without hesitation, Rei realized, growing cold. He won't ever think twice. How could she have missed this evil! But no, it was no evil. Not in the usual sense. It was attitude of a wolf towards its prey, of a man towards a meatball, so mundane and unimposing that she failed to see his true nature.

The unshaven appeared suddenly on her other side, plucking the henshin wand from her fingers. He twirled it incomprehendingly in his hand, then smirked and threw in into the fire. Like you could dispose such way of a powerful artifact controlling the fire element.

"We checked it, all right," Haruka said quietly, feeling guilty.

The smiling one told something to the unshaven one, who then started walking towards the four girls frozen in hesitation. He walked in an arch, to keep out of his partner's line of fire. The guy stood with his saw-off pressed firmly against Rei's side, looking past her at the girls so dispassionately it was sending chills down their spines. Rei was trying not to breathe.

"No sharp motions," Minako warned in an unusually serious voice. The silly smile looked glued onto her face.

The unshaven one started searching them unceremoniously. Haruka tried to rebel when he pawed at Michiru, but the smiling guy pressed his gun harder against Rei's side, keeping his finger on the trigger. The raven-haired girl paled. Haruka froze, feeling even more guilty and helpless. Who asked her to carry her henshin wand in the pocket, instead of subspace! The unshaven one searched her next, found it and threw it into the fire. Now there were two wands soothing over amidst the boughs cracking softly in the fire.

When they were searched, Makoto glared while Minako smiled with a fake shyness. The unshaven one reacted to both with greasy grins. Michiru kept studying him calmly. He did not find anything else. It's good that the others aren't fools like me, Haruka thought. The man squinted, studying them in return, then he started pulling Haruka's arms behind her back. She resisted by reflex, getting a hit in her solar plexus for her trouble. While she was hunched over, the man tied her hands behind her back, dragged her to the nearest tree and tied her there, all the while telling her something merrily.

And all this time the smiling guy kept looking watchfully at the other three, never taking the barrel away from Rei.

Then the unshaven one returned to the campfire. He exchanged a few words with his accomplice. The guy with the gun ordered his hostage something, and the raven-haired girl paled even more, not daring to even twitch. He pushed her with the barrel, setting direction, and led her away, finally turning his back to the rest of them. Rei cast a helpless look over her shoulder, only getting an another prod in the back in return.

The unshaven man sat down beside the campfire, and checked the pot. Then he gestured to the three girls to sit beside him, saying something in a friendly and jovial voice.

Rei and her captor disappeared beyond the gully edge.

"You asked for it!" Makoto walked up to the unshaven man, her fists clenched. "Now we'll simplytake you—"

The knife appeared in his hand so fast like he, too, had been keeping it in subspace. The man smiled a wide, disarming smile, not even bothering to stand up.

"..yourself hostage," the brunette mumbled, freezing. She had been taking some lessons from Ranma, but it wasn't enough. And they haven't covered disarming an opponent armed with a knife. A _skilled_·opponent armed with a knife. "Guys, act fast. There are three of us against him, even in civilian! At least transform while I hold him—"

"You are forgetting something," Michiru reminded her, walking up to the campfire and kneeling down calmly.

"Exactly," Minako agreed, following her example, still with the same glued-on silly smile. Unlike the emerald-haired woman, her calm was fake. Even Makoto could see she was high-strung, practically vibrating.

"What's wrong with you?" Makoto clenched her fists.

The snorting and suppressed laugh from behind was her answer. Then someone said something in a rude, sardonic voice. She turned around, and her heart fell. The two who have been carving their kill! They stood there, having their fun, both holding their guns in a deceptively relaxed manner. Makoto tried to assess her chances of take on all three if she was kneeling at the campfire. She felt her heart sink even more. She turned to the other girls, searching for support. Both replied with eloquent looks: sit, now! What are they thinking! She plopped down, dimly aware of her surroundings. The two men behind her back guffawed. Then their steps began approaching.

The unshaven one lifted the aluminum cup up from the ground, wiped it with the flap of his jacket, then poured tea, added vodka, and handed it to Minako. She took it with both hands, looking into his eyes. Then she said, so breathily as if she was quoting some porn film: "Guys, we have to trick them, and quick. Rei has barely a couple minutes left."

I don't need you to explain me that, Makoto thought, glaring around frowningly. Like I don't see it myself.

(シーンブレイク)

May 5, 2013. Translated May 19, 2013.

**Author's notes:**

**1**  
Explaining the joke: the geographical names in these parts are anything but Russian. Everything but the range itself is named by the native tribes. Whose languages _do_·sound weird for a Russian ear.


End file.
